Ep.#452 - Summer Camp

Dan McCoy

[0:00] On this episode, we discuss Summer Camp.

Stuart Wellington

[0:03] Starring Mark Harmon.

Dan McCoy

[0:04] No, that's summer school.

Elliott Kalan

[0:06] What did I watch then?

[0:09] That's great. I like that.

[0:12] What else would love? He said summer school and you say, what did I watch?

[0:14] Clearly summer school.

[0:15] I assume it was summer school.

[0:30] Hey, everyone, and welcome to the Flophouse.

Dan McCoy

[0:42] I'm Dan McCoy.

[0:43] I'm Stuart Wellington.

Elliott Kalan

[0:45] I'm Elliot Kalin.

[0:46] That's right, the Elliot Kalin from the Flophouse.

Dan McCoy

[0:49] Uh-huh, yeah.

[0:50] Oh, wow.

[0:50] That's how I know you.

[0:51] Yeah, your face looks familiar to me.

Elliott Kalan

[0:55] Yeah, does my face look familiar to the listeners of this podcast?

[0:58] Are you looking at me right now?

[0:59] Yep.

Dan McCoy

[1:00] Uh, hey, this is a podcast where we watch a bad movie.

[1:05] No, no, there's more.

[1:06] Okay.

[1:07] Hold on, don't turn it off yet.

[1:08] You're like, uh, just a podcast?

[1:10] So we just-

[1:11] A generic podcast? No, thank you.

[1:13] No, no.

[1:13] There's more to the-

Elliott Kalan

[1:13] Don't worry, there's more to the premise than just that.

[1:16] It's not just a delivery medium.

[1:18] It also has content, Dan.

Dan McCoy

[1:20] We watch a movie that either audiences or critics rejected or both, and then we talk about it.

[1:25] In this case-

[1:26] It was a both.

[1:28] Yeah, it was a both.

[1:29] We watched a film called Summer Camp, starring Diane Keaton.

[1:35] Uh-huh.

[1:35] And?

[1:35] Alfre Woodard.

[1:36] And?

[1:37] And?

[1:37] And Kathy Bates.

[1:38] And?

[1:39] Uh, Beverly D'Angelo.

[1:40] And?

[1:41] Eugene Levy.

[1:42] And?

[1:43] Dennis Haysbert.

[1:44] Uh-huh.

[1:45] Yep.

[1:45] And?

[1:46] Uh-huh.

[1:46] There's that guy, oh, Betsy Sedaro.

[1:49] Yeah.

[1:49] Uh-huh.

[1:49] And?

[1:50] Nicole Richie.

[1:51] Uh-huh.

[1:51] And?

[1:51] I don't know who that guy is.

[1:53] Josh Beck.

[1:53] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[1:54] So this is a star-

[1:55] Charlene was like, is that Jonathan Silverman?

[1:57] I'm like, how old do you think Jonathan Silverman is?

Elliott Kalan

[2:00] Yeah, because he's been frozen for 30 years.

[2:02] When the single guy ended, they just shoved him in a cryogenic unit.

[2:05] This is a star-studded cast.

[2:08] Uh-huh.

[2:08] Yeah.

[2:09] It is studded with stars.

[2:10] They took a star stutter, and they just punched stars into the leather of this one.

Stuart Wellington

[2:14] Also, it has Eugene Levy and Dennis Haysbert, so that's two certified studs.

Dan McCoy

[2:18] And this is also, this is in the new genre, which is what we would call a book club, a movie,

[2:25] where you take some older actresses, and you put them together in sort of a shaggy comedy.

[2:31] And that's kind of an evolution of, I think, an even older form, often like British actresses,

[2:37] older actresses sort of get together for like a heartwarming comedy or a little bit saucy.

Elliott Kalan

[2:42] It's the latest version of what in the oldest, oldest, oldest Hollywood terms, you would call

[2:47] a woman's picture.

[2:49] A picture that is about women having feelings, going through some kind of relationship with

[2:54] other women or between women and men that is about, more about their emotional up and downs

[3:01] than it is about like a tightly plotted, you know, Cracker Jack story.

[3:05] This is the, but now they're all kind of like saucy comedies or kind of like very lazy comedies

[3:11] as opposed to in the 80s, they would have been like your Steel Magnolias, that kind of thing.

[3:16] In the 40s, they would have been like your now Voyagers, you know.

[3:20] So, but this is the new, this is the current version of it.

Dan McCoy

[3:22] Yeah.

[3:22] And the current version is the least tightly plotted version.

[3:25] As I put on my letterbox, it felt like the screenplay was falling downstairs.

[3:30] Like scenes was just sort of.

Elliott Kalan

[3:32] Dan, you should save that kind of stuff for the podcast.

[3:34] That's good stuff.

Dan McCoy

[3:35] Yeah, well, you know, I recycle it.

[3:37] I'm earth conscious.

Elliott Kalan

[3:39] Yeah, I feel like your letterbox reviews are just these dazzling.

[3:43] If you're not subscribing to Dan's letterbox, you should.

[3:45] Yes.

[3:45] It is dazzling the reviews.

[3:47] And your podcast recordings are often you getting angry at us for interrupting you.

[3:52] But if you were bringing out gold and diamonds like that, we'd never interrupt you.

Stuart Wellington

[3:56] I love Dan's letterbox reviews.

[3:58] This is not a burn at all.

[3:59] This is a moment of honesty.

[4:02] Very kind of both of you.

Elliott Kalan

[4:03] If anyone pays people to review movies, you should hire Dan because he can do the job amazingly.

[4:10] He's great at it.

Stuart Wellington

[4:11] For reviewing movies or if he has to, he'll take his top off.

[4:15] He doesn't care.

[4:16] That's true.

[4:17] Or my shoes and socks.

[4:19] Speaking of taking tops off, let's just get it.

[4:22] Middle range, I'm not into.

[4:24] Let's air this before, you know, it gets weird.

[4:27] But yes, Beverly D'Angelo still looks incredible, ageless.

[4:31] What a beauty.

[4:33] Yeah.

[4:33] She can still get it.

[4:35] Despite what Dan is trying to argue with me.

Dan McCoy

[4:37] Aaron, this before it got weird or did it just get weird?

Elliott Kalan

[4:39] I feel like it.

[4:40] I think he said, I have to say this so it'll get weird.

Dan McCoy

[4:42] Yeah.

[4:43] I mean, this.

[4:44] If I can't get weird with you guys, who can I get weird with?

[4:47] My therapist?

[4:48] He hates me.

[4:50] The thing I wrote down in my notes is at one point, Diane Keaton, you know, repeats to

[4:56] herself.

[4:57] They force Diane Keaton to repeat to herself, I'm a bad bitch over and over again.

[5:00] I'm like, do I have any kink now?

[5:02] Is that what's going on?

Elliott Kalan

[5:03] Dan, if Diane Keaton wasn't your kink before, you got a problem.

[5:06] I don't know you then.

Stuart Wellington

[5:08] There's a moment later on when they're about to go rafting and I was like rubbing my hands

[5:14] together being like, how covered up will Diane Keaton be for this?

[5:19] How many turtlenecks is she wearing?

[5:21] How many scarves over turtlenecks?

Elliott Kalan

[5:23] Is there some kind of broad brimmed aquatic hat that she can be wearing?

Stuart Wellington

[5:26] The craziest thing is in that specific scene of the three women, she has the smallest brimmed

[5:30] hat.

[5:31] Yeah, it's true.

[5:32] Usually she likes a big hat.

[5:33] I'm like, what universe am I in?

Elliott Kalan

[5:35] I love her.

[5:35] I mean, any movie with Diane Keaton in it, to a certain extent, is going to be at least a

[5:40] certain level of good to me.

[5:41] I mean, I've seen some bad movies with her in it, but it's almost impossible for me to

[5:45] not enjoy seeing her in a movie, even if she's not playing a Diane Keaton character.

[5:49] She's great in Reds.

[5:49] I love her in that.

[5:50] And she's not a character that you would think of as a Diane Keaton character.

Stuart Wellington

[5:54] I do love that they're just like, we are dressing her the same no matter what movie it is.

Elliott Kalan

[5:59] I think that's more of a Diane Keaton thing.

Dan McCoy

[6:01] I'm wearing the same clothes no matter what movie it is.

[6:02] I just love it.

[6:03] I think it's great.

[6:04] She just brings her back of her own clothes from home for every film.

[6:06] Probably, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[6:07] But then that's a throwback to, again, old Hollywood type way of treating actresses where

[6:14] an actress had a style, and actors too, and that style would carry from picture to picture.

[6:19] And I feel like with Diane Keaton, it's a similar thing.

[6:20] It's like, this is what Diane Keaton dresses like, and it's great.

[6:24] It works so well for her.

[6:25] Everyone loves it.

[6:26] Why would you change it?

[6:27] Why bother?

Dan McCoy

[6:28] Yeah.

[6:28] What you were saying about always being happy to see her, though, I want to say that dovetails

[6:32] into something I just want to say.

[6:33] Dovetails into?

[6:35] I don't want to get ahead of ourselves with Final Judgment.

[6:38] It's like, we actually really tend to like these types of movies here at the Flophouse

[6:43] because it is like, oh, yeah, we get to see these great performers doing things that,

[6:47] and unfortunately, don't get to do other stuff.

[6:50] But this may be one of the shaggiest versions of this kind of thing that we've gotten thus far.

[6:57] This movie is very shaggy.

[6:58] It doesn't hit the highs of like 80 for Brady.

[7:01] No, not at all.

Elliott Kalan

[7:02] If this movie is so shaggy that it's almost a DA.

[7:05] Oh, shaggy.

[7:07] Because there was the shaggy DA once.

Stuart Wellington

[7:08] Yeah, it's so shaggy it's going to claim that it wasn't him when being caught.

Elliott Kalan

[7:14] Exactly.

[7:14] Dan, do you have a shaggy reference that you can throw to him?

Dan McCoy

[7:18] It's so shaggy it hangs out with a large dog.

[7:21] That's the one I was up to.

Stuart Wellington

[7:22] Three completely different shaggies.

[7:24] We did it.

[7:25] Okay, so let's talk about this.

[7:26] I'm really glad that you guys both, just to pull back the curtain, both Dan and Elliot thought they were doing the summary.

[7:31] It's a real mix them up.

[7:33] It's true.

[7:33] Something that would happen in one of these movies.

[7:35] And they both thought they were doing the summary, which is great because I don't remember almost any of this movie.

[7:40] So I'm very excited about this.

[7:41] Stuart needs to go to summary camp, which is what we're going to do today.

Elliott Kalan

[7:45] Now, as weak as that joke was, that is a thousand percent stronger than any joke in the movie Summer Camp because there's not a lot of jokes in the movie.

[7:54] And I found that the one part that I really laughed at out loud was when Diane Keaton is walking out of a room holding a pillow and just goes,

[8:01] ah, fucking pillow, and throws it down, which feels like an ad-lib.

[8:04] I have to imagine that was an ad-lib.

[8:06] So, okay, Summer Camp.

[8:07] Dan, unless you'd like to do the honors, I'll do the summary.

Dan McCoy

[8:11] I'll, you know, stay on my notes if there's anything incisive.

[8:15] Keep me honest.

Elliott Kalan

[8:16] Keep me honest, yeah.

[8:17] So we start at Camp Pinnacle.

[8:20] It is an undefined past time.

[8:23] It's roughly the 60s or 70s.

[8:25] Is it?

[8:25] I thought it looked like 80s, but maybe I'm wrong.

[8:28] It looked 70s to me, but all of these women were adults, or at least Diane Keaton and Kathy Bates were in the 70s.

[8:35] They would have gone to summer camp in like the early 60s, let's say.

Dan McCoy

[8:38] Well, they're playing Itty Bitty Pretty One on the soundtrack, which I think indicates, yeah, earlier.

Elliott Kalan

[8:43] Oh, I just thought it indicated a lack of imagination on the part of whoever chose the songs for the movie.

Stuart Wellington

[8:50] Real quick, were you guys summer camp kids?

[8:52] Did you guys go to summer camp?

Dan McCoy

[8:54] I went to, nerd alert, I went to church camp several years in a row.

Stuart Wellington

[8:59] God damn it, you make me sick.

[9:01] The worst kind of nerd, religious nerd.

Dan McCoy

[9:03] I mean, it's basically the same as other summer camps in that there were outdoor activities and everyone was obsessed with the idea that maybe we would make out with one another.

[9:12] Yeah.

[9:12] But there would also be Bible study every day.

[9:15] Oh, cool.

Elliott Kalan

[9:15] I mean, I went to Jewish camp at one point.

[9:17] So that's – I escaped from several camps while I was a kid.

[9:20] So summer camp and I were not friends.

[9:22] Yeah.

[9:23] And I actually wrote a story for a book that came out years ago, an anthology that came out from Hebe magazine, the magazine that was about making Jews cool and did not succeed.

[9:33] That – a story about running away from camp and almost getting away with it.

[9:39] And so I had a very negative relationship with summer camp when I was young.

[9:44] Now, it sounds like a lot of fun.

[9:45] If I went to a camp as an adult, I think I'd have a great time.

[9:48] But as a kid, when I did not love outdoor activities that much and also people were bullying me all the time, I didn't like it that much.

Stuart Wellington

[9:54] Stuart, how about you?

[9:55] Summer camp, did you ever do that?

[9:56] My summer camp experience, I would go to – I went to soccer camp a couple times where I'd spend like two weeks.

Elliott Kalan

[10:02] Soccer tort camp, you would do a lot of like Middle European baking, yeah?

Stuart Wellington

[10:05] Uh-huh.

[10:06] Yeah, delicious patisserie.

[10:08] I – yeah, it – yeah, so I would do that.

[10:11] So I watched this movie with my wife who did spend some time at summer camp.

Elliott Kalan

[10:15] Because I'll tell you, because your wife and I have one big thing in common is that we are East Coast Jews.

[10:19] And that summer camp is a very big thing for – especially New York area Jewish people.

Stuart Wellington

[10:23] Uh-huh.

[10:23] And she went to a summer camp in Pennsylvania, Camp Pointelle.

[10:28] And she, in fact, like two years ago went to a camp reunion.

[10:32] She hadn't been back since they denied her application to be a counselor in training.

[10:38] Oh, wow.

[10:39] Which was a huge – which was a huge piece of trauma for her to unpack.

[10:41] That's a big slap in the face, yeah.

[10:43] Which, weirdly enough, my therapist went to the same camp, had the same experience.

[10:47] Isn't that strange?

[10:48] I know.

Elliott Kalan

[10:48] Are you married to your therapist?

[10:50] That feels like it's sometimes.

[10:51] I will say that I mentioned East Coast Jews.

[10:54] My wife, who is, of course, a West Coast Jew, she went to summer camp, has a very strong connection with her summer camp.

[11:00] And my older son now goes to that summer camp.

Stuart Wellington

[11:01] That tracks.

[11:03] Yeah.

[11:03] That tracks for me.

[11:05] Yeah.

[11:05] From what I know of your family.

Dan McCoy

[11:06] And, of course, you have an East Coast, West Coast beef.

Stuart Wellington

[11:09] So many have died in our house.

[11:11] Yeah.

[11:12] It's really a lot of drive-bys.

[11:14] Okay, anyway.

[11:14] I bring this up because Charlene, while watching it, gave me color commentary on whether or not, A, this looks like a nice camp, or, B, if they could do that at a camp.

[11:22] Oh, okay.

Elliott Kalan

[11:23] I'll be happy to hear Dan's commentary on my summary and your intake of Charlene's commentary of whether they could do that.

[11:32] So we're at Camp Pinnacle.

[11:33] There's a little narration from Ginny, who we'll learn is one of the titular summer campers.

[11:38] Go on.

Stuart Wellington

[11:40] It took me a while.

[11:40] While you guys were watching this part, were you, like, trying to map the different actresses onto their young counterparts?

[11:46] Oh, I didn't.

[11:46] No, it seemed pretty clear that the black one was Alfre Woodworth.

Dan McCoy

[11:49] And the one with the skinny one with glasses was Diane Keaton.

[11:54] Okay.

Elliott Kalan

[11:54] And the one who's kind of like, who was kind of like sassy, you knew was going to be Campy Bates.

[11:58] Yeah, with a southern accent.

[11:59] Okay.

[11:59] Yeah, with a southern accent.

[12:00] That's true.

[12:01] So we're introduced to three campers.

Stuart Wellington

[12:02] And the kid with the eyebrows.

[12:03] You're like, that's fucking Eugene Levy right there.

[12:06] Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Elliott Kalan

[12:08] So the, I mean, I didn't know Eugene Levy was in the movie going into it.

[12:12] So when he showed up.

[12:12] Did you just look at the credits?

[12:14] I didn't really do a lot of intense research.

[12:18] The dishes were calling.

[12:18] Yeah, I get it.

[12:19] Yeah, the dishes were calling me.

[12:21] The dishes were a nice respite, you know.

Dan McCoy

[12:24] Toss salad and scrambled eggs.

[12:26] You'd hear the dishes they're calling.

[12:28] Didn't know what to do with them.

Elliott Kalan

[12:30] So I think it was the, well, anyway, we don't need to get into parsing the Frasier theme song.

[12:34] So Ginny is narrating as an adult about how kids love summer camp, but nerdy Nora did not until she met bad girl Ginny and also nerdy Mary.

[12:45] And the three of them became fast friends.

[12:48] Ginny, of course, talks Mary through her first period, which is about as, I mean, this is a movie that every now and then leans in a more off color or kind of like raunchy direction.

[13:00] And then immediately reels back as quickly as possible.

Dan McCoy

[13:04] Yeah, I don't want to skip ahead too much, but there is a scene when they all, you know, come back as adults where Kathy Bates' adult Ginny gives them the gift all of small radio-controlled vibrators.

[13:17] Vibrating eggs.

[13:18] And I'm like, this is going to come back into the movie later on.

[13:21] And other than like one quick reference, it does not.

[13:24] Like it seems like the setup for a raunchy.

Elliott Kalan

[13:26] At some point in the draft, there must have been, of this screenplay, there must have been a scene where they're controlling each other's vibrators.

[13:33] Yeah.

[13:33] Like in that horrible.

[13:34] They get it mixed up.

[13:35] That Katherine Heigl, Gerard Butler movie that we saw.

[13:37] The Ugly Truth, yeah.

[13:38] Was that it?

[13:39] Yeah, The Ugly Truth.

[13:39] Yeah.

[13:40] So I have to assume that at some point there was a scene where they were doing that.

Stuart Wellington

[13:43] That's the movie where the cat's name is D'Artagnan.

Elliott Kalan

[13:47] That's right.

[13:47] I forgot about that.

[13:48] Yeah.

[13:49] So anyway, they get put together in the Sassafras cabin, just the three of them.

[13:53] They become best friends for years afterwards.

[13:55] They're always being reunited at camp.

[13:57] They really love it.

[13:58] Now it's 50 years later.

[14:00] That's why I assumed it was the 70s.

[14:01] I think they say 50 years later, but maybe not.

Stuart Wellington

[14:04] And this isn't taking place in the future.

Elliott Kalan

[14:07] No, I don't think so.

[14:08] Oh, I forgot to mention.

[14:09] This takes place in the year 2245 when it's after the robot rebellion.

[14:14] Oh, cool.

[14:14] And humanity has gone back to a 2020s level of technology.

[14:18] Yeah.

[14:18] They're all doing it as a bit.

[14:20] Yeah, exactly.

[14:20] Ginny is now a famous self-help mogul, Ginny Moon.

[14:24] She's determined to get her friends Mary and Nora to this big camp reunion.

[14:28] Mary, we learn, is a nurse who should have been a doctor.

[14:31] She either dropped out of med school or didn't go because she got married young.

[14:34] Her husband is always annoying her.

[14:36] She minimizes herself, you know.

[14:37] Yes.

[14:38] She minimizes herself and puts others before herself too much.

[14:41] There's a scene where she is literally giving life-saving resuscitation to somebody while

[14:45] her husband is calling her being like, where's the peanuts at home?

[14:47] And she keeps answering and it's like, just take your Apple watch off.

[14:51] Like, just don't wear it.

[14:52] I don't, like, just, you should.

[14:53] Anyway.

[14:54] But it shows that she's always putting her husband first.

[14:56] Nora, meanwhile, is a workaholic CEO at a science company of some kind.

[15:01] And Ginny and Mary ambush her at her lab, convince her to come with them in Ginny's RV.

[15:07] And as they drive, Ginny reveals she had a stalker once.

[15:10] This is another thing that you think is going to come up as a thought point later on.

[15:13] Doesn't.

[15:13] There's a lot of, like, there's a lot of things that are laid in as if they're going to be

[15:17] important later and they are not.

Dan McCoy

[15:18] Now, Ginny's big branding, of course, also is get your shit together, which is on the side

[15:23] of a giant RV, which is kind of like, you know, throughout the...

[15:27] It's a tour bus.

[15:28] Yeah.

[15:29] Yeah.

[15:29] It looks more like a bus, but they call it an RV.

Elliott Kalan

[15:31] And she drives it herself, right?

[15:32] It's like she doesn't have a driver, I don't think.

Stuart Wellington

[15:35] No, no.

[15:35] That's a character they're really missing.

[15:37] They could have gotten some, like, weird old, grumpy...

[15:40] Think about what meatloaf adds to Spice World, you know?

Dan McCoy

[15:43] I'm glad we solved this problem of whether there was a driver or not in the middle of...

[15:48] No, I'm just saying that I wanted to say that this is, like, the first indication that Ginny,

[15:54] while well-meaning, a lot of her help is kind of based on bullying, which will become a bigger

[15:59] thing as the phone goes on.

Elliott Kalan

[16:00] She's very much in the kind of, like, Dr. Phil, Jordan Peterson, if you have a problem,

[16:06] it's on you, and you've got to fix yourself, and don't blame the world.

[16:10] It's your problem.

[16:10] You know, be tough.

[16:11] Be tough and stand up for yourself and be a bitch, you know?

Stuart Wellington

[16:14] And I blame...

[16:15] The thing is, I blame all my problems on that dang Slender man.

Elliott Kalan

[16:20] I mean, here's the thing, so you've got to hear Slender's side of the story, because

[16:22] he has a good reason for why he's doing those things.

Dan McCoy

[16:24] I mean, he does promote...

Stuart Wellington

[16:25] Because he has trouble finding pants that don't fall down?

Dan McCoy

[16:27] He promotes that unrealistic body image, too.

Elliott Kalan

[16:30] Yeah, that unrealistic Jack Skellington body image that's been held over our heads for

[16:33] too long.

[16:34] Ugh, yeah.

[16:35] Ideal boyfriend.

[16:36] I tell you, I try to get people to have a crush on me on Tumblr, but they only want those Slender

[16:40] man Jack Skellingtons, you know?

[16:41] If I'm not the once-ler from the Lorax movie, they are not interested.

[16:47] Negative 3% body fat or nothing, sir.

[16:50] I want you to have the body of someone whose stomach is eating away at your own flatbeds,

[16:55] flesh, because you're not feeding it enough, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[16:57] Yeah, I'm only dating guys who have contracted the thinner curse.

Elliott Kalan

[17:04] Yeah, Botkin's disease.

[17:05] Contracted it.

[17:08] So, this is the hardest part of my job.

[17:10] You've caught thinner.

[17:12] They arrive at the camp reunion.

[17:14] They meet Vic, who's a kind of...

[17:18] So, this is Betsy Tadaro, right?

[17:20] And I'm like, I couldn't tell what Vic's role was supposed to be.

[17:23] If they're a security guard or a program director or just like a general all-around counselor,

[17:28] she presents herself as if she is like their personal liaison who's working just for them.

[17:33] But most of the movie is her yelling at them for breaking the rules or things like that.

[17:38] And I kept thinking, the way this part is written, I wonder if this was a male part,

[17:44] and then they cast Betsy Tadaro.

[17:45] Because all the writing is all...

[17:47] It makes it clear this is like an ex...

[17:49] Like, this is supposed to be like a veteran who's like toughest man.

[17:51] Oh, I don't know.

Dan McCoy

[17:51] I think it was just like, this is the Betsy Tadaro role.

[17:55] I mean, this is the kind of character that Betsy Tadaro is.

[17:56] 90% of...

[17:57] Yeah.

[17:58] I just was...

[18:00] My problem with this character was it felt like they wanted her in the movie.

[18:06] They just had a part to toss out to someone and did not write lines or it's all...

[18:14] Like, I feel like everything's improvised.

Elliott Kalan

[18:16] And a lot of the Josh Peck stuff feels like it is a lot of improvising and ad-libbing.

[18:20] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[18:21] And it's one of those things where we have these characters who are all...

[18:25] They're like, what are the stakes, really?

[18:27] Like, all these characters seem to be well-to-do.

[18:30] They are at this reunion where there's no campers.

[18:33] It's only returning alumni.

[18:35] Well, it's an adult camper.

Dan McCoy

[18:36] I mean, camps do that.

[18:37] They'll...

Stuart Wellington

[18:37] No, but what I'm saying is that these...

[18:39] That they're like treated like...

[18:41] Like, if they break any of these, in many cases, kind of silly rules,

[18:44] they really, like, come down on them.

[18:46] And it feels so strange because you're like, you're an adult.

[18:49] Like, you're fine.

Elliott Kalan

[18:50] I mean, well, that's...

[18:51] Later on, we'll get to the point where Diane Keaton is trying to break into the room

[18:54] where the phones are stored to get her phone.

[18:55] And then they're, like, sitting in the camp director's office getting chewed out.

[18:59] And it's like, yeah, you're an adult.

[19:00] Just leave.

[19:00] Or just do whatever.

[19:01] Like, who's...

[19:03] What's the authority here?

[19:03] But anyway...

[19:04] But this is...

Dan McCoy

[19:05] Yeah, well, this is the...

[19:06] This is supposed to be, like, the Paul Blart mall cop version of comedy, though,

[19:10] where it's like, oh, this character with no actual power, you know,

[19:14] he's on a power trip, which I never find.

[19:16] It's funny as movies want me to find it.

[19:18] They really like it.

[19:19] But you love Paul Blart mall cop.

[19:20] Oh, yeah.

[19:21] Well, I go to Blartcon every year.

Elliott Kalan

[19:24] Well, you've got that tattoo on your belly that says Blart life.

[19:26] Yeah.

[19:27] Uh-huh.

[19:28] So, they also...

[19:29] Blart is hard.

[19:30] We meet a couple of the other characters here that are...

[19:35] They're old summer camp either chums or romantic interests who are now older.

[19:40] Of course, the popular girls are there, led by Beverly D'Angelo.

[19:43] And there's also the...

[19:45] Their old crushes are back.

[19:46] And they are, of course, Stevie D, played by Eugene Levy.

[19:51] I got to say...

[19:52] And Tommy, played by Dennis Haysburg.

Dan McCoy

[19:55] Yeah.

[19:55] And they get out of the car...

[19:58] Slow-mo.

[19:58] To the strains of Sharp Dressed Man.

[20:00] And I got to say, this is the one time, I think, in history that Eugene Levy has gotten a, like, slow-mo sexy intro.

Elliott Kalan

[20:08] And I can't...

[20:09] I'm not sure if it's supposed to be a joke.

[20:10] At first, I thought it was a joke.

[20:12] That, oh, this older guy, they're trained this way.

[20:14] But throughout the movie, they just treat him straightforwardly as, like, he is a handsome, sexy man.

Dan McCoy

[20:19] You know?

[20:19] Well, the thing is, like, the movie made me realize, I'm, like, looking, I'm like, oh, Eugene Levy is handsome.

[20:26] He just plays, like, such a goofball, like, fumbling schluck all the time.

[20:30] I'll give you a secret.

[20:31] I'll give you a secret.

Elliott Kalan

[20:33] Even people in movies who are considered not handsome are handsome in real life.

[20:37] Like, even...

[20:37] Like, I'll often...

[20:38] I'll watch Singing in the Rain, and, like, Donald O'Connor is supposed to be, like, the goofy sidekick.

[20:42] He's a very good-looking man.

[20:44] Yeah.

[20:44] Even the goofy side, but next to Gene Kelly, he's not, you know, stellarly handsome.

[20:48] But, like, even the...

[20:49] But Eugene Levy, yeah, like, the idea that, like, oh, yeah, he's a good-looking guy.

[20:52] Yeah, he's had a career in television and the movies for 50 years.

[20:54] Yeah, of course.

Dan McCoy

[20:55] I mean, I would rather they let him be funny in this movie.

[20:57] As we were texting on the Flophouse chain, and I actually said to Audrey, like, it's an odd movie where it's, like, Eugene Levy does not make me laugh one time.

Elliott Kalan

[21:08] Is not even trying a lot of the time.

[21:09] Yeah.

[21:09] I think he has, like, kind of...

[21:11] He has the kind of lines that I think are supposed to be joke lines.

[21:14] Joke lines in the hands of, like, who's a handsome star who's not a funny guy, you know, who would have those kinds of lines.

Dan McCoy

[21:22] Like, I don't know.

[21:25] I don't know.

[21:26] Well, I don't know what point you're making, so it's hard to say.

Elliott Kalan

[21:28] I don't know, like Harrison Ford or something like that.

[21:29] Yeah.

[21:29] It's kind of lines where it's like, oh, this is, like, the handsome guy is making, like, an along-the-way remark.

[21:32] That's not supposed to be, like, a huge funny joke.

[21:34] Right, right.

[21:34] It just shows he has a sense of humor.

[21:36] You've got Eugene Levy, who's a genuinely incredibly funny person.

[21:39] So, but yeah, it's strange.

[21:40] So, anyway, but their crush is so up.

[21:42] The ladies have to give up their phones.

[21:43] Nora and Mary don't like that.

[21:45] Nora, she wants to do work.

[21:46] And Mary's got to keep in touch with her husband, who's connected to her as if he was her child.

Stuart Wellington

[21:51] And there's a moment where Betsy Sedaro's, like, any, like, listing all the things they might have.

[21:56] And she's, like, iPads.

[21:57] And I'm, like, you know these women have iPads.

Elliott Kalan

[22:00] Yeah.

[22:00] And so there's also, there's a moment where they see that their cabin is full of bugs.

[22:03] And they're, like, ew.

[22:04] And I'm, like, okay, we'll get jokes about rustic stuff.

[22:06] No, no, no.

[22:07] This is still in that kind of, what's her name?

[22:09] The one who did Something's Gotta Give.

[22:11] Nora Ephron.

[22:12] No, no, no.

[22:13] Nancy Meyers.

[22:14] Nancy Meyers.

[22:14] Everyone has fancy kitchens.

[22:16] Oh, you're right.

[22:16] I'm, like, well, I thought this was gonna be more Nancy Meyers-y.

[22:19] Then we see how Kathy Bates has had their cabin glammed up.

[22:22] And there's a lot of, like, Top Chef kitchen-style panning shots of, you know, how nice the cabin is now.

[22:28] And she also gives them the aforementioned egg vibrators, which do not play into the plot.

Dan McCoy

[22:32] It's not a big thing, but I want to highlight a moment that I found baffling just in the sense of, like.

Elliott Kalan

[22:37] It's not a thing from the movie Big?

Dan McCoy

[22:38] Yeah, it's not a thing from the movie Big.

[22:40] It's from this movie.

Elliott Kalan

[22:40] It's that giant fucking keyboard, right?

Dan McCoy

[22:42] No, I said it's not a thing from the movie Big.

[22:44] From the movie Big.

[22:45] It's big, right?

[22:46] It's big in two ways.

[22:47] Yeah, that's true.

[22:48] And that's what I'm saying is not.

Elliott Kalan

[22:49] Tonight we're serving Big two ways.

[22:51] It's a giant keyboard from the movie Big.

[22:53] I'm supposed to eat this.

[22:53] And also just the movie Big.

[22:55] I don't understand.

Stuart Wellington

[22:55] I'm supposed to dance on it with Robert Loja.

[22:57] Let's get him out.

[22:58] Oh, no.

[22:58] Let's do it.

Elliott Kalan

[23:00] Oh, no.

[23:00] We have it.

[23:01] Bring his corpse out.

[23:02] We can do this.

Dan McCoy

[23:02] No, it's not a major point, but I want to bring it up.

Elliott Kalan

[23:09] So it's not from the movie Major Pain.

[23:12] God damn it.

Dan McCoy

[23:14] To me, this is just emblematic of how, like, shaggily this movie is put together.

[23:18] Because, like, we get the moment where they see the pretty committee.

[23:22] They're like, ugh, you know, gross.

[23:24] They're still like they were.

[23:25] Whatever.

[23:26] And then.

[23:27] I'll say.

[23:27] And then Jenny takes out her phone and, like, plays, like, a TikTok she made about how if you don't get the love you deserve, you should take his ass to the dumpster.

[23:35] And the women have this reaction as if this was, like, pertinent to anything that happened before.

[23:42] Like, this, like, flowed naturally from the scene before when it has no reference to anything.

[23:49] I mean, later on, you know, like, there's stuff about Alfie Wooden's character's husband, Mike, and how shitty he is and how he needs to be taken to the dumpster.

[23:57] But that is not the scene that preceded this.

[23:59] And I'm like, am I going mad?

[24:01] Like, why is this scene in here?

[24:04] What's happening?

[24:05] And I think that's just kind of the way the movie is in a lot of ways.

Elliott Kalan

[24:08] It's not a tightly structured movie.

[24:11] No.

[24:12] Also, we find Beverly D'Angelo's character now is enamored of Ginny because Ginny is famous.

[24:16] So the idea.

[24:17] So you think they're setting it up for, like, oh, the popular kids are now mean adults.

[24:22] And there's going to be tension there.

[24:23] But there isn't.

[24:24] Not really.

[24:24] This is a, let's call this movie easygoing.

[24:27] We've been saying shaggy.

[24:28] This is a, if this was from the 70s, people might be like, oh, it's that laid back, shaggy 70s charm.

[24:33] Classic Altman-esque.

[24:35] Exactly.

[24:35] But it's, it doesn't, I mean, it's not good.

[24:37] So it doesn't achieve that.

[24:38] But it's, yeah.

[24:38] The sound is so crazy.

[24:41] I wouldn't even call this movie slapped together so much as kind of like scattered.

[24:45] Like they scattered scenes on the ground.

[24:48] And it's up to you to pick them up and kind of put them in some kind of tense order.

Stuart Wellington

[24:51] Pick it up, look at it, or just put it back down.

[24:53] Who cares?

Elliott Kalan

[24:53] Just put it back down.

[24:54] Yeah.

[24:55] So the ladies go have drinks.

[24:56] They accidentally knock over some, an hors d'oeuvres tray leading to a food table falling over.

[25:00] And it begins this running gag of Josh Peck's character who works at the camp.

[25:04] The idea is they keep talking about how he keeps screwing up and having to get jobs that are kind of lower on the totem pole.

[25:11] But he's not really screwing up so much as the ladies are messing things up for him.

[25:16] Like he's not really doing anything wrong.

[25:18] But the movie always assumes that this character is kind of like a loser.

[25:21] But it doesn't, it just doesn't gel.

[25:22] It doesn't make sense.

Dan McCoy

[25:23] Well, also, I have to say in my own notes, right, you know, like as we said, we couldn't, we had some confusion over using the summary.

[25:30] So I was also taking notes and I didn't register him as an important character until sort of halfway through the movie when I'm like, oh, I should start noting down what this guy's doing.

[25:41] Because by the end, he becomes important.

[25:43] Go all the way back.

[25:44] He is given no, like, like the movie does not do the job that most movies do that, that underlines, okay, these are the things you need to pay attention to as you watch the film.

Elliott Kalan

[25:55] Because I think the, I think the truth is that until maybe the last 10 minutes, there's nothing you need to pay attention to.

[26:00] Exactly.

Dan McCoy

Elliott Kalan

[26:02] It's a real wallpaper of a movie.

[26:04] Anyway, they meet up with, with Tommy and Stevie and there's a lot of awkward flirting all around, awkward innuendo.

[26:10] Love it.

[26:11] But Nora is mostly annoyed at how hard it is to do work at the camp.

[26:14] She yells at Vic.

[26:15] She gets embarrassed in front of Stevie.

[26:17] That night, Ginny's annoyed that Nora's working and she's not present.

[26:20] She doesn't know how to not work.

[26:23] But luckily, she can't do work on her phone while she is river rafting.

[26:27] They go river rafting.

[26:28] Nora falls out of the raft.

[26:29] They have to pull her in.

[26:30] Hilarity ensued, right?

Stuart Wellington

[26:31] I was very excited also because I was like, I'm like, how are they going to shoot this?

[26:34] Because that's got to be a stunt actor.

[26:36] Like, and you know, it doesn't, it doesn't really look like Diane Keaton until they haul her back in.

[26:42] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[26:42] I mean, I think it's, I think it's fair to not push Diane Keaton into, into river rapids.

Stuart Wellington

[26:46] I was going to say, I can't believe this movie would throw Diane Keaton into the river rapids.

Dan McCoy

[26:49] Yeah, there's also a later scene where Alfre Woodard is, you know, riding a horse around and falls off a horse.

[26:56] You know, it's just spot, spot the stunt double.

[26:59] It's a fun game you can play with this.

Elliott Kalan

[27:00] But again, again, I'm happy to not have Alfre Woodard thrown off a horse for real.

Dan McCoy

[27:04] I'm not saying she should do it and certainly not for summer camp.

Elliott Kalan

[27:07] Yes, not for summer camp.

[27:09] Yeah.

[27:10] Of all the movies to break a collarbone for, summer camp is not the one.

[27:14] And it just kind of goes on like that for a while.

[27:16] And you keep getting the same notes of Mary's talking to her husband on the phone.

[27:20] He doesn't really pay attention.

[27:22] Ginny's kind of bossy.

[27:23] Nora's trying to work.

[27:25] Stevie shows up and helps her sneak into the cell phone room.

[27:28] And they're about to kiss when Vic catches them.

[27:31] Oh no.

[27:32] Stevie kind of talks them out of trouble, but not exactly.

[27:35] And when Nora gets back, her friends are disappointed that she didn't kiss Stevie.

[27:38] They're like, spill the tea, spill the tea.

[27:40] And she's like, oh, there isn't really any.

[27:41] And so the girls then-

[27:42] I'm going to keep the tea in my cup.

[27:43] Thank you very much.

[27:44] Yep.

[27:44] And the girls have a little talk about marriage and loneliness.

[27:46] You know, is it right to get married?

[27:48] Is it not right to get married?

[27:49] Is loneliness worth the independence that you get?

[27:51] And this could have been, there's a couple scenes where it's like, this isn't funny,

[27:55] but like, I kind of would love to see these actresses playing characters of their age,

[28:00] talking realistically about the feelings of being at that age and the choices you've made.

[28:05] And now you're living with the results of those choices, which is what this movie is about.

[28:09] But like, it's also-

[28:10] It's like past lives like that.

[28:11] Yeah, yeah, kind of, yeah.

[28:12] But it's also supposed to be kind of like a bubbly nothing.

[28:15] And so you're not going to get that deep into those themes or into those moments.

[28:19] The next day, it's archery.

[28:22] Nora almost hits people with her arrows.

[28:24] At one point, she almost fires one backwards behind her, which is hard to do.

Stuart Wellington

[28:28] There was a scene early on when they were kids where they do, they meet Dennis Haysbert and Eugene Levy's child characters.

[28:36] They're younger characters, yeah.

[28:37] Because they shoot one of them with an arrow.

[28:40] Yeah, they shoot Dennis Haysbert with an arrow.

Elliott Kalan

[28:41] And it like sticks in his stomach.

[28:42] And he still has a scar.

[28:43] And the story is told that then that Mary, as a kid, like glues the wound shut, which is, I have to say, having been to summer camp, if you got hit with an arrow, you would be taken away from the camp and brought to the hospital.

[28:55] Like, that's not the kind-

[28:56] I hope that Charlene pointed out to you, Stuart, that like at a real camp, the kids were not allowed to do the first aid for a projectile puncture wound.

Stuart Wellington

[29:04] She said that all tracked.

[29:07] That all made sense.

Dan McCoy

[29:08] Based on her experience, yeah.

[29:10] There's some very sexual pottery making here, too.

Elliott Kalan

[29:13] So Mary goes off with Dennis Haysbert, and they do some phallic pottery that turns into vaginal pottery.

[29:19] Yeah, and there's some fingering of the pottery that happens as well.

[29:23] And Nora and Stevie do some flirt archery, and they hit the bullseye together.

Dan McCoy

[29:28] Mm-hmm.

Elliott Kalan

[29:29] Mm-hmm.

[29:30] And Dan, I think in your Letterboxd review, you said something about sexual tension you couldn't cut with a chainsaw.

[29:36] You said something about it being not since, oh, I'm forgetting the name.

[29:41] What's that real sweaty movie with Kathleen Turner?

[29:43] Body Heat.

[29:44] Not since Body Heat.

[29:44] Thank you.

[29:46] There's been so much palpable sex on screen.

[29:48] You said that, right?

[29:49] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[29:50] I mean, that sounds like me.

[29:51] It sounds like the sort of thing I'd say, but I don't remember.

Elliott Kalan

[29:54] And then you just said, awooga, awooga, and then it was four siren emojis one after the other.

[29:58] Yeah.

[29:58] I think you put it on your list that you just titled Heat Alert.

Stuart Wellington

[30:02] Uh-huh.

[30:02] Yeah.

[30:02] He was like, you guys looking for a third?

Dan McCoy

[30:07] Yeah.

[30:08] I got real horned up watching this.

Elliott Kalan

[30:10] And so Ginny just keeps telling Mary to leave her husband, not in clever ways, just saying, you should leave your husband.

[30:14] He sucks.

[30:15] They give Nora.

[30:16] I guess they're trying to give her a sexier outfit, but it still kind of looks like a Diane Keaton outfit.

[30:21] Yeah.

[30:22] And they get, which is, again, it's kind of sexy.

[30:24] Yeah.

[30:24] Can't improve on, you can't put a hat on a hat.

[30:26] No.

[30:27] There's no, you can't get more than 100%.

[30:28] And then she gets her to call herself a bad bitch.

[30:31] This is one of the big, I assume this was, if there had been a trailer for this movie.

[30:34] For the trailer, yeah.

[30:34] This would be the trailer moment.

[30:36] And they also give Mary a makeover.

[30:38] So everyone's, it's a lot of, you know, sprucing each other up.

Dan McCoy

[30:41] I'm just imagining if, like, after the bad bitch moment, it really, like, turned into, like, it took a turn and, like, turned into, like, sort of a neo-noir where she had to become, like, a bad bitch.

Elliott Kalan

[30:51] Yeah.

[30:52] She gets caught up in a murder scheme or it becomes, like, a faster pussycat kill kill.

[30:56] And now she's, like, kidnapping Eugene Levy and ripping his clothes off and, like, scratching his chest and writing, like.

[31:02] What a picture it would be.

[31:02] Writing, like, cock on his forehead with a lipstick and things like that.

[31:06] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[31:06] Or one of her arms turns into, like, a gun, like she's a cyborg ninja.

[31:11] Yeah, yeah.

[31:11] And she has sex with a car and she gives birth to a metal baby.

[31:14] Yeah, sure.

[31:15] Good stuff.

[31:16] I would say this movie checks a lot of the boxes.

[31:18] I was definitely expecting there to be a scene where they all accidentally do drugs, right?

[31:23] They didn't, there was a one of those.

[31:24] Oh, yeah.

[31:25] They missed out on that.

Elliott Kalan

[31:25] Or on purpose.

[31:26] There should, you know what?

[31:27] For this movie, there should have been a scene.

[31:29] Like an ayahuasca trip or something.

[31:31] Ayahuasca trip or even, like, they accidentally eat edibles or something like that.

Stuart Wellington

[31:34] A lot of, a lot of, uh, Kathy Bates, Jenny Moon's character, like, the jokes for her is mainly her just, like, saying celebrity names, right?

[31:41] There's a lot of, like.

[31:42] She does a lot.

[31:42] Oh, I was hanging, I was having a threesome with, like, Dr. Phil and Oprah or something.

Elliott Kalan

[31:46] Yeah, it's a lot of, like, celebrity name drops or, like, just kind of, like, um, like, vulgar talk.

[31:53] Like, she's a little more earthy than the others, you know?

[31:55] Yeah.

[31:55] She's more Rebellasian, you know?

Dan McCoy

[31:58] Even on, like, a, on a more, on a more basic level, like, there's a whole, like, genre of, like, camp movies that I feel like this movie does not.

Elliott Kalan

[32:07] Yeah, like Pink Flamingos.

Dan McCoy

[32:08] Yeah, yeah, that's right.

[32:09] Yeah.

[32:10] Friday the 13th.

Elliott Kalan

[32:11] Yeah, well, yeah, camp movies, yeah.

[32:14] No, I just don't think of this, like.

[32:15] You were going down a different, a different comedy path than we were going down.

[32:17] Yeah.

[32:17] Still works.

[32:18] Still works, that's true.

[32:20] I mean, it's a little more literal.

[32:21] That is, Friday the 13th is a camp movie, but yeah.

Dan McCoy

[32:23] But I feel like they could have gotten a lot of juice out of just, like, just taking the tropes of other, like, summer camp comedies and really doing them, rather, like, with older actors.

[32:36] Dan, there is a food fight scene.

[32:37] There is a food fight scene.

[32:39] Yeah, that's true.

[32:39] It's true, that's the one time that they do it.

Stuart Wellington

[32:42] And there's, no one's ever done, like, taken all the cliches about summer camp movies and made, like, a parody comedy.

[32:48] They've never done it.

[32:49] No one's ever done that.

Elliott Kalan

[32:50] They certainly didn't do it as a movie or a six-episode television series.

[32:53] It didn't.

[32:53] Yeah.

[32:54] Never happened.

[32:55] But you're right, Dan, they could have just, to do, like, the summer camp scenes and the parent trap, that kind of thing, but with older people as opposed to kids.

Stuart Wellington

[33:02] Now, if they were to do that, they should do a little bit of off-the-wall casting, maybe with, like, a SVU actor in a comedic role.

[33:10] Oh, you're still on this, I see.

Elliott Kalan

[33:12] It's still the same one, yeah.

[33:14] It's like, where are we?

[33:14] I mean, I think, did he, was he on SVU at the time?

[33:17] I guess he was, right?

[33:18] He's got to have been.

Stuart Wellington

[33:19] He's always been on it, right?

[33:20] Yeah.

[33:20] Oh, see, it's like The Shining, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[33:21] There's a picture of SVU from 1925.

[33:24] There's a picture of his fucking cheeked-up tush.

Dan McCoy

[33:29] He does have a cheeked-up tush.

Stuart Wellington

[33:31] Everybody does, right?

[33:32] Like, what are your tushes made out of?

[33:34] Yeah, but, like, he's fucking packing some serious cake back there, man.

Elliott Kalan

[33:39] Well, this is, we're going into it.

[33:40] You haven't paid attention?

[33:42] No, I haven't.

[33:43] I haven't really paid that much attention to how caked-up he is.

[33:46] Christopher Maloney is.

Dan McCoy

[33:48] Yeah.

[33:48] Well, I think you're missing out.

[33:50] Guys, I'm going to go to too much information.

[33:54] No, I love this.

[33:55] Audrey is taking some photos of me in my underwear the other day just because she's like, look

[34:02] at it.

[34:02] No, we are at the level of too much information.

[34:05] I love this.

[34:05] No, hold on.

[34:07] Not in a sexual way.

[34:08] Well, sort of.

[34:09] But not really.

[34:10] But just because she's like, look at what yoga has done to your butt.

[34:13] Look at it.

[34:14] Oh, I see.

[34:14] And you can't see that.

[34:15] You need a picture to see it.

[34:16] I can't see it.

[34:16] Yeah.

[34:17] Oh, man.

[34:18] I got to say.

[34:19] I've got cheeked-up cakes now.

[34:21] Yeah.

[34:22] You're like Christopher Maloney, finally.

[34:23] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[34:23] Dan's dragging a wagon.

[34:25] Yeah.

[34:26] It's finally happened.

[34:27] I never thought it could happen to me.

[34:28] You're finally built like a Pixar mom.

[34:31] Yep.

Elliott Kalan

[34:32] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[34:33] So anyway.

[34:34] Stupid thick McCoy.

[34:35] That's what we call him.

Elliott Kalan

[34:36] Yeah.

[34:36] He's like the American Godzilla back there.

[34:39] Yeah.

[34:40] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[34:40] Dan gets stuck on the street asking where he got his BBL.

Elliott Kalan

[34:44] So that night, Ginny is hosting a sort of public therapy session where people take turns

[34:50] getting therapy from her in front of everybody.

[34:52] She reduces Beverly D'Angelo to admitting that she is an approval-seeking phony, which is the

[34:59] kind of thing that would mean more if we had seen her actually being like not nice or in

[35:04] any way.

[35:04] Like it feels like finally she's getting her comeuppance.

[35:07] But for what?

[35:07] There was no come to uppance from, you know.

Dan McCoy

[35:09] And I mean like the movie is doing this on purpose because Ginny is going to get a kind

[35:15] of a comeuppance.

[35:16] Her comeuppance, yes.

[35:17] But it did seem weird to me because I'm like, oh, well, Beverly D'Angelo is being like really

[35:21] vulnerable and Ginny's reaction is like, okay, now go sit down.

[35:25] Yeah.

[35:25] It seemed really mean.

[35:26] I think she is.

Elliott Kalan

[35:27] I mean, she's not good at this.

[35:28] I mean, here's the secret, everybody, about celebrity kind of therapy things.

[35:32] They're often not very good.

[35:34] Like they're – I think it – the main thing about therapy, for me at least, is the – is

[35:41] that you can't do it en masse.

[35:42] Like you've got to – it's got to be a personalized thing about who you are.

[35:45] And so the idea that she's just like speed rounding therapy, like maybe it's on purpose,

[35:49] the idea that like she's not – she's bad at this because at the end, well, she'll admit

[35:52] she needs to get her shit together, you know.

[35:55] But anyway, she's – so Ginny starts practicing her keynote speech for the other two and it's

[35:59] just full of her regular kind of like deal with it, you know, stand up for yourself,

[36:03] idiot kind of stuff.

Stuart Wellington

[36:04] Yeah, basic like social media therapy influencer type.

[36:09] Yes.

Elliott Kalan

[36:09] And they're like – they start to give her critique of it and she gets defensive.

[36:13] The next morning, uh-oh, Mike, Mary's husband, shows up and he is mean to her.

[36:17] He didn't give her permission to stay all this long.

Stuart Wellington

[36:19] I do kind of like the idea that her husband showed up and he's like, where are the peanuts at?

[36:27] The same place I told you last time.

Elliott Kalan

[36:30] He is like – he's like a dominating baby is the thing.

[36:33] It's his need and his desperate need that is the bully.

Stuart Wellington

[36:35] I mean, have you met many old men?

Elliott Kalan

[36:37] There are a lot of dominating babies.

[36:40] So – and she's like, no, I'm not going to go home with you and the other ladies are

[36:44] watching from afar and seeing all this and she says, no, I'm staying here and her husband

[36:49] leaves.

[36:50] Mary is relieved and the other is really proud of her and she's like – they're like, what

[36:53] do you want to do?

[36:53] She goes, I want to go horseback riding.

[36:55] I'm going to ride a fucking horse.

[36:56] Which she knew that – which we know because we saw it earlier on.

[36:59] She liked as a kid.

[37:00] Unfortunately, there's a minor mishap.

[37:02] She gets thrown in the mud by the horse.

[37:03] Don't worry.

[37:04] She's okay.

Dan McCoy

[37:04] Yeah, she's okay.

[37:05] I was like, every bone would be shattered.

[37:08] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[37:08] And also, like, this is where I get really mad at the Josh Peck character too who's like – he's

[37:14] like doofy in the rest of the movie.

[37:15] But here he's like –

[37:17] Here he does cause the problem.

[37:18] Oh, like, oh, she shouldn't be riding that horse.

[37:20] He stands right in front of the fucking horse so it throws her.

[37:23] I'm like, she was doing fine, man.

[37:25] What is this?

[37:26] Yeah.

[37:26] What is this bullshit?

Elliott Kalan

[37:27] Yeah, that's – he is doing his job badly there.

[37:29] The girls have dinner with the guys.

[37:31] Ginny won't stop bragging about how important she is.

[37:34] And Tommy, Dennis Haysbert, chokes and Mary saves him with the Heimlich, which leads

[37:38] to a food fight.

[37:39] It's dumb.

[37:39] This seems just dumb.

[37:41] And it literally has someone yelling, food fight, which, like, I've been in food fights

[37:44] since every camp.

[37:45] No one ever yells it.

[37:46] You just start throwing – once you get food hitting you, you're like, oh, I'm

[37:48] you.

[37:48] You know you're in a food fight.

[37:49] Like, you don't have to have it announced, you know.

[37:50] For someone who's arguing –

[37:52] No one ever goes, war, when a war breaks out.

[37:55] Like, you know you're in one when you're getting shot at.

Dan McCoy

[37:57] Yeah.

[37:57] I mean, technically, Congress is supposed to go, war, before it happens.

Elliott Kalan

[38:01] But the power of the executive office has been expanded so much since the War Powers

[38:05] Act that that piece of legislation, though never overturned, has effectively been overturned

[38:09] in practical terms.

Dan McCoy

[38:10] Anyone can shout war these days.

Stuart Wellington

[38:11] Wow, I can't believe now we're being classified as an educational podcast, right?

[38:16] And we're being deported.

Elliott Kalan

[38:17] I have to just make sure that this never gets found out by the TSA because they won't

[38:21] let me back in when I talk about it.

Dan McCoy

[38:23] Anyhoo, too real.

[38:24] Let's go back to summer camp.

[38:26] Let's go back to something that is not real at all.

[38:28] So there's a big food fight.

Elliott Kalan

[38:30] They leave.

[38:31] Nora and Stevie escape to the kitchen, which even though it's the dinnertime session of

[38:35] camp, the kitchen is deserted and totally clean.

[38:37] So I guess the staff made the food, cleaned up and left.

[38:41] Yeah.

[38:41] They're just great.

[38:42] And they do end up kissing.

[38:44] She ends up kissing him because she thinks he's going in for a kiss.

[38:47] At the cabin, Mary gets mad at Ginny for being so bossy and judgmental.

[38:51] And they argue.

[38:51] They all get into a fight.

[38:53] It's the end of Act Two.

[38:54] Time for the heroes to get into a fight and be mad at each other.

[38:56] And they learn that Ginny was hiding a cell phone.

[38:58] And she reveals...

Stuart Wellington

[38:59] This is like when Spider-Man gives up his powers, right?

[39:02] When Spider-Man would be like, I don't want my powers anymore.

[39:05] And he walks around powerless, right?

[39:07] And he just walks around.

[39:08] This is when Spider-Man's like...

Dan McCoy

[39:08] That's what he fucking does in the movie.

[39:10] You're too bossy, my memory of Uncle Ben telling me to be responsible.

[39:14] Yeah.

[39:15] You're trying to boss me all the time.

Elliott Kalan

[39:16] Stuart, the way you said it, it said as if he goes, I don't want my powers anymore.

[39:19] So he just walks around in his costume, just solving crimes without using any of his powers.

Stuart Wellington

[39:24] The powers were a crutch.

[39:25] Did you see when the Knicks won their game the other day?

[39:28] You can guarantee I did not see that.

[39:30] But there was a guy dressed up in a Spider-Man suit with Knicks memorabilia,

[39:36] dancing in a circle of like hundreds of people.

[39:38] And I'm like, this is the most New York thing I've ever seen.

Elliott Kalan

[39:42] Unless he was holding a pizza in his hand.

[39:44] The only sports thing I'm aware of recently was that they've retired the scoreboard

[39:49] for when I think it's when the Pirates and the Phillies play.

[39:55] So that if there's no score, it no longer looks like it says poop on screen.

[39:59] And that was a sad moment for baseball when they retired that.

[40:02] Yeah, that's too bad.

[40:02] So anyway, that's the kind of sports story that gets onto my radar is when a graphic that says poop is retired.

[40:11] So they all get mad at each other.

[40:13] And Ginny admits that this whole summer camp reunion, she funded and planned the whole thing just to have an excuse to get her friends together because she didn't expect that they would want to spend time with her.

[40:25] Nora storms out.

[40:26] This is when she has her best line of the movie, fuck you pillow.

[40:28] And she just drops a pillow.

[40:29] She's walking out.

[40:31] She sneaks into Ginny's RV and spends the night responding to work messages.

[40:34] Oh, no, she's hit rock bottom, which for her is working too hard.

[40:38] The next morning, Stevie finds her there and he gives her a talk about being a workaholic.

[40:42] And she runs after him like, no, no, wait, I can change.

[40:45] Mary on a hike runs into Tommy, pours out her troubles to him.

[40:49] And like the perfect man that he is in a movie for ladies, he just says, I just like to listen to you.

[40:54] You know, doesn't try to give her advice or solve her problems.

[40:57] Doesn't try to tell about his problems.

[40:59] He's just there to listen.

[41:01] A perfect partner because he is doing for her what she does for her husband, which is just be at her beck and call emotionally.

Stuart Wellington

[41:08] Her love language seems to be what, quality time?

[41:12] Is that probable?

[41:13] And hiking and pottery.

[41:15] And hiking and pottery, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[41:17] Yeah, Nora and Stevie, they talk about setting limits at work and how he had a heart attack at one point and spending more time with his kids.

[41:23] And I got to tell you, as someone whose current work status is killing, is being dead, you know, being murdered by work.

[41:30] This really spoke to me, you know, this really spoke to me.

[41:33] For anyone who's listening, don't worry, I am not dead yet.

Dan McCoy

[41:35] Well, yeah, please don't get murdered by work.

Elliott Kalan

[41:38] I'm trying my best.

[41:40] I'm trying my best.

[41:41] It's a real game of cat and mouse between me and work right now over who's going to get who.

[41:45] You see, ever seen that movie, is it Assassins, the one where it's Antonio Banderas and Sylvester Stallone are each trying to kill each other?

[41:52] That's like that between me and work right now.

[41:54] So Ginny's trying to write her speech and she's having trouble.

[41:59] And she runs into the camp employee, Josh Peck, who keeps getting into trouble.

[42:03] And he's the one who's basically like, you're too controlling.

[42:06] She's really rude to him.

[42:07] But then she shows him up.

[42:09] He shows her up because he knows more about how dangerous deer scat is to just lead around than she does.

[42:14] She doesn't know everything, you know.

Dan McCoy

[42:16] Well, also, he just, I mean, like he just very calmly says something like, that hurt my feelings.

[42:21] Or like, that was me and you hurt my feelings.

[42:23] And it seems to get through to her in a way that everything else hasn't.

Elliott Kalan

[42:27] Yeah, and I'm impressed by that kind of subtle viral marketing for Hallie Hagelin's newsletter.

[42:32] That hurts my feelings.

[42:33] Oh, yeah, sure.

[42:33] Or that hurt my feelings.

[42:34] Look it up on Substack as seen as mentioned kind of in summer camp.

[42:38] Yep.

[42:39] But you're right.

[42:39] Someone's saying to her, hey, you crossed the line.

[42:43] I guess maybe she's just used to being rewarded for this kind of brash behavior.

[42:47] Yeah.

[42:47] And no one has very just so boldly said to her, directly said like, that was mean.

Stuart Wellington

[42:53] And despite so much of her advice basically just amounting to establishing firm boundaries with other people,

[42:59] I don't think she's used to people establishing boundaries with her.

Elliott Kalan

[43:02] Yes, very good.

[43:03] This is a well-written movie.

[43:04] Yeah, exactly.

[43:05] So, these are rich characters.

[43:07] I mean, they are rich characters.

[43:08] They have no financial problems whatsoever.

Stuart Wellington

[43:10] I mean, that's part of the genre though, right?

[43:13] I feel like a big part of the genre is that like, of like, you know, older ladies doing stuff that they don't have financial troubles.

Dan McCoy

[43:20] Yeah, that's more time to have a book club than drink wine.

Elliott Kalan

[43:24] Also, the genre of movies, which for the most part now are rarely about people with any financial issues.

[43:29] But you're right.

[43:29] There's a fantasy element of like, I don't have to worry about it.

Stuart Wellington

[43:32] Yeah, like I saw Black Bag and I'm like, man, these guys are fucking loaded.

[43:36] They have so many lights on their table.

[43:37] These spies are loaded.

[43:39] These spies have the nicest house with so many fucking lamps on there, like just sitting on the table.

[43:45] It's crazy.

Elliott Kalan

[43:45] But for real, for true, because you used to see spy movies where the spies were glamorous at work, but not necessarily like wealthy on their own.

[43:54] You know, like a spy work is not supposed to make you rich.

Stuart Wellington

[43:56] More like a slow horses thing.

Elliott Kalan

[43:58] Slow horses or like the Michael Caine, what, Harry Palmer movies.

[44:02] Are those the ones like where they're, what's his character, his spy character from like Billion Dollar Brain and things like that.

Dan McCoy

[44:08] Or they would have to like, you know, they'd have to keep like a knife in their shoe.

[44:11] Like that would have to do double duty.

[44:12] They couldn't have a separate, they couldn't afford a separate knife and a separate shoe.

Elliott Kalan

[44:16] That's a very good point.

[44:17] Yeah.

[44:17] If you had a phone in your shoe, it was because you couldn't, you couldn't have both.

[44:20] Exactly.

[44:21] Yeah.

[44:22] James Bond's car is full of gadgets, but that's, but they had to use a preexisting car.

[44:26] It's not like, even though it's a luxury car, it's not like they made him a special car, you know, whereas now he'd get a special car.

[44:31] Anyway.

[44:32] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[44:32] Yeah.

[44:32] And when he asked for gadgets, they're like, they're in the car.

Elliott Kalan

[44:35] Like you said you wanted a car, they're all in there, dude.

[44:38] They come preloaded.

[44:39] Look, you said you wanted a thing that sprays poison gas.

[44:41] We had to put it in a pen because like, then we could call it part of the office supply budget.

[44:46] That's the only way we could get it through.

[44:47] So Nora and Mary discuss Ginny's issues.

[44:49] They realize they're not great friends either.

[44:51] They don't remember their friend's birthday or anything like that.

[44:53] That night, Ginny gives her speech.

[44:54] It looks like Mary and Nora didn't show up.

[44:56] Once again, one of Stuart's favorite things, empty seats at a performance.

[45:01] I love it.

[45:01] He loves it.

[45:02] Loves it.

[45:03] Ginny gets upset on stage.

[45:05] She speaks honestly from the heart and Mary and Nora walk in and she comes to an epiphany

[45:09] about friendship and needing to not be in control.

[45:12] She says, it's better to be together than to have your shit together.

[45:16] And this is one thing I want to say about this movie.

[45:19] This is not a good movie.

[45:20] It's a comedy that's not funny.

[45:22] It does not get through to real emotion in the characters.

[45:25] It is skating by constantly on the charisma of these leads.

[45:29] But I will say this.

[45:30] I recently read the book, A Liar of Orpheus by Robertson Davies.

[45:32] And in it, he makes the point that even bad, trite, crappy art can still embody a truth.

[45:39] You know?

[45:39] And sometimes those truths come through even truer because you don't have the glittering,

[45:46] brilliant artifice of a great work of art to distract you.

[45:49] And there are two moments in this movie, the one where Eugene Levy is saying to Diane Keaton,

[45:53] you can't make your whole life about work.

[45:55] Like, I did that and it was wrong and it almost killed me.

[45:57] And this moment where she says, it's better to be together than to have your shit together.

[46:00] Like, it's better to connect with another person than to seem perfect.

[46:04] And I was like, movie, you're bad.

[46:07] But you're saying real things to me that are good for me to hear at this point in my life at the moment.

[46:12] And so, those things being true messages does not in any way make this a good movie.

[46:18] But it was one of those things where I'm like, movie, okay.

[46:20] Like, at least the message is not like, girls gotta do it for themselves.

[46:25] You know, something that is not a real thing.

Stuart Wellington

[46:25] And normally when that happens, I'm like watching, I'm like, girls do gotta do it for themselves.

[46:30] I haven't really thought about it that way.

[46:32] Thank you.

[46:33] You're right.

[46:33] It is so funny when you're watching like a piece of shit that speaks to you all of a sudden.

[46:38] And you're like, uh, should this matter so much?

[46:41] Am I an idiot for connecting with this?

Elliott Kalan

[46:43] Well, it's like there's a, there's some, I had, one of the reasons I left The Daily Show when I did was,

[46:49] also, I didn't want to work there anymore.

[46:50] But the, and I was burned down.

[46:52] Too much Dan McCoy.

[46:53] And the allegations.

[46:54] Too much Dan McCoy.

[46:55] And what?

[46:56] And the allegations.

[46:57] Yeah, that too.

[46:58] I had to leave.

[46:59] They made too funny.

[47:00] Oh, wow.

[47:01] Good save.

[47:02] Wow, Dan saved your ass right now.

[47:04] Thank you, Dan.

[47:04] I appreciate it.

[47:05] After all things I've said about you.

[47:06] But I went to see two movies around that time.

[47:08] It follows where I was like, I love this movie.

[47:10] There's more things to do in life.

[47:12] And I feel like there's a deep meaning in this movie.

[47:13] And Kong Skull Island, which is a very fun movie.

[47:16] But there's a point in it where the guy goes, you go looking for a war, you're going to find one.

[47:20] And I was like, I bet that hit more people harder than everything I've done at The Daily Show about war and like getting into it.

[47:26] The idea that like in this monster movie, yeah.

[47:28] If you're looking for a monster to fight, you're going to find a monster to fight even if there wasn't one to begin with.

[47:32] You're going to make that war.

[47:33] And I was like, oh, man, you can say true things in silly movies or like, you know, goofy movies.

[47:39] You know, the goofy movie obviously has no –

[47:41] Yeah, you can say there's some amazing shit in the goofy movie.

Dan McCoy

[47:43] Yeah, Powerline's song has a lot to say to us.

[47:45] God, I've got to watch that fucking movie.

Elliott Kalan

[47:47] Well, at the set, we're going to have to do the goofy movie at some point.

[47:49] Like it's maybe the most demanded movie for us to do.

[47:54] So that night, the ladies talk about how Ginny's life has been empty because she's been so focused on seeming perfect, you know, or whatever.

[48:02] They're a real family.

[48:03] And they make up.

[48:04] The next day, they use a canopy zipline ropes course.

[48:07] The movie is effectively over.

[48:09] But I guess there's a ropes course at the camp they were shooting at, so they've got to use it.

[48:13] And Ginny hires Josh Peck.

[48:15] He's now her social media marketer or something like that.

[48:17] For some reason.

[48:18] She's never shown any aptitude for it.

Stuart Wellington

[48:20] Well, she has basically sabotaged his camp career, so we might as well help her with this.

[48:25] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[48:25] Nora has an epiphany, and she lets them help her in the ropes course, and she's going to quit her job.

[48:33] Ginny gives another epiphany speech.

[48:35] This one I don't like.

[48:35] The movie has sold – it's selling past the close, you know.

[48:39] So Nora quits her job.

[48:40] Mary decides to leave her husband, and then they zipline to –

[48:43] Well, not just that.

Dan McCoy

[48:44] Mary also – and look, I don't want to say – I don't want to close anyone.

[48:48] She's going to bring her down before their time.

[48:50] Like, many wonderful things can happen.

[48:52] Don't bring her down.

[48:53] In old age.

Elliott Kalan

[48:54] Oh, oh, oh, oh, don't bring her down, Dan.

Dan McCoy

[48:55] But Alfie Woodard is in her 70s, and the character at the end of this movie is like, I'm going to go back and become a doctor.

[49:02] I'm like, no, don't.

[49:05] Four years of medical school?

[49:07] Now?

Elliott Kalan

[49:08] Can you imagine someone at that age having to do a residency where you're working like 20-hour days?

[49:12] Like, don't do it.

[49:13] Yeah, don't do it.

[49:14] But, Dan, it's just a fantasy movie.

[49:16] It doesn't matter.

[49:16] Yeah, sure.

[49:16] That's why they ride away on a pegasus at the end.

[49:20] Yeah.

[49:20] They zipline to –

Stuart Wellington

[49:21] It's like, what, the end of Madea or whatever?

[49:24] It's Madea's family reunion.

[49:26] Yeah, yeah.

[49:26] Where Madea flies away with two, what, dead children?

[49:30] What happens in there with that thing?

[49:33] And Jason's like, what did I do?

[49:35] Oh, man.

[49:36] Oh, boy.

[49:37] Oh, man.

[49:37] I feel like a real idiot.

[49:39] I feel like a real heel.

[49:40] How do I apologize for this one?

[49:42] Oh, man, what a great character.

[49:43] Man, Greek mythology had a lot of great-ass characters.

Elliott Kalan

[49:45] Well, the fact that Jason is a hero, he ruins his family life, he puts on a hockey mask, and he just starts stabbing summer campers.

[49:52] Oh, man.

[49:53] Oh, what a hero.

[49:54] Well, I mean, that's one of the great things about all the Greek myths is it's like, look, here's the secret.

[49:59] Everybody's a piece of shit, right?

[50:01] The gods, shit.

[50:02] The gods, piece of shit.

[50:04] The heroes, pieces of shit.

[50:05] The Minotaur, probably the best guy in the whole thing.

[50:09] Yeah.

[50:10] I mean, I guess, like, whose other – like, I guess there's no good guys in Greek myths, which is great.

Stuart Wellington

[50:15] Yeah, that's probably what spawned the God of War video game franchise.

[50:18] Somebody's like, all these people are pieces of shit.

[50:20] Somebody should invent somebody and just murder them all.

Elliott Kalan

[50:22] Yeah.

[50:22] So, anyways, they zipline away.

[50:24] Summer of 69 plays.

[50:26] And then we get outtakes and bloops.

Dan McCoy

[50:28] We get bloopers.

[50:29] Turn it off.

[50:29] I want to say one thing that I want to – you did not.

[50:32] The one thing I want to say about this –

[50:33] You heard the siren song of bloops and you kept it on.

[50:36] There's a scene where Nicole Richie and Betsy Sedar are clearly improvising.

[50:42] And Nicole Richie, like, comes the closest that the movie does to making me laugh with one of her lines.

[50:47] And it made me think about how, like, she's been really funny in, like, some sitcoms later in her career.

[50:53] And back in the old days when she was hanging out with Paris Hilton, like, people were making such fun of her.

[50:58] And, like, it taught a real lesson about how you shouldn't write someone off in a way that I'm like, you're talking about, like, art hitting you in weird ways.

[51:06] I'm like, well, that made me think more than anything else in this movie.

[51:09] It's just, like, thinking about the real career of this actor.

Stuart Wellington

[51:13] I feel like a very real thing that people, I think, are just coming around to, I think at least culture is coming around to, is that Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie knew what they were doing.

[51:23] Yes.

[51:23] Like, this is a bit.

Dan McCoy

[51:24] Yes, I think so.

[51:25] That it's a bit.

Stuart Wellington

[51:25] And at the time, all these people were like, oh, these characters are – like, these people are dumb.

Elliott Kalan

[51:29] And I'm like, they're doing a bit, guys.

[51:30] I mean, it will – I will say, in defense of the people who did not get that they were doing a bit, I think there was – it was a time when there was the idea of, oh, you're famous for being rich and pretty.

[51:42] And now you get a TV show where you get to just kind of, like, it seems like make fun of ordinary people.

[51:48] I think not getting the level of irony that they are the villains of that show, that they're supposed to be playing dumb.

[51:52] And not living in the world we live in now where being rich is the single most important thing and the only thing that matters in the entire world.

[51:59] That we live in such a fallen universe at the moment where all that matters is money and that a computer can make a picture of Jesus with five boobs just with a verbal prompt.

[52:09] You know, like, I think at an earlier more innocent time.

Dan McCoy

Elliott Kalan

[52:13] Yeah, you're making it sound so much better.

[52:15] I guess that's true.

[52:17] So it's because I can't help it.

[52:18] I'm an imaginative human being.

[52:19] I can come up with new ideas.

[52:22] But I think that we lived in a simpler, less – at a time when now it's not like irony is dead so much as reality has become so ironic that nothing matters.

[52:30] And so when that TV show is on, I get people not getting that bit.

[52:32] Yeah, I know you're right.

[52:33] You're right.

[52:33] That being said, Dan, I know what you're saying, which is you shouldn't just discount somebody because you think you know who they are rather than really paying attention to who they are.

[52:41] Yeah, yeah.

[52:41] So we all learned something from summer camp.

[52:43] Yeah.

[52:44] So that's a good movie.

[52:45] That's the movie.

[52:46] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[52:46] Yeah, well, that takes us into final judgments whether this is a good, bad movie, a bad, bad movie, or a movie we kind of like.

[52:54] I'm going to say, like I said, this is a type of movie that surprisingly we often enjoy at the Floppus, or maybe not surprisingly, but it's not geared towards three middle-aged men per se.

Stuart Wellington

[53:06] You mean a movie filled with beautiful older women that we wouldn't like it?

[53:10] That's crazy, Dan.

Dan McCoy

[53:10] You're making it creepy again.

[53:14] But as much as I like the performers, I do think this is kind of like, it's definitely the weakest one of these that we've watched.

[53:21] I don't know if it's the weakest full stop or that will ever exist, but I will say bad, bad, even though there are elements about it that were enjoyable.

[53:29] I love that you've thrown down the gauntlet.

[53:31] Somebody make a weaker one.

[53:32] Someone make a worse one.

[53:33] Stuart, what do you have to say?

[53:34] Someone's going to make a worse one.

Stuart Wellington

[53:36] Yeah, this is a bad, bad movie.

[53:37] It's very scattered.

[53:44] It just doesn't put any, it feels very effortless in a bad way.

Elliott Kalan

[53:49] Yeah, not effortless in a Michael Jordan way.

[53:52] Yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[53:53] Yeah, it just, it seems to rely on the charisma and talent of the cast, and I don't think it gives them enough to work with.

[54:02] It's not very good.

Elliott Kalan

[54:03] I will, I'm going to surprise you guys.

[54:05] I think this is objectively a bad movie.

[54:07] It's barely a movie.

[54:08] It's, there's a, there's a joke I've always loved from Mystery Science Theater for the movie The Screaming Skull, where they say this is about two minutes of a movie and 90 minutes of styrofoam packing peanuts.

[54:18] And that's what this movie feels like.

[54:19] And that's what this movie feels like also.

[54:20] But I will say, this is one, maybe because it's not trying at all, and it is so entirely resting just on the, my residual enjoyment of this cast.

[54:30] There were, I did find, I did find it going down very easy.

[54:33] And it had those two moments where I was like, all right, this movie is saying true things to me, almost by accident, you know?

[54:39] And so, in the end, it was a movie I kind of liked, but it is bad.

[54:42] It's not worth watching.

[54:44] And it's very much like, but I think it was almost like, if this was trying to be funny and failing, I would have hated it.

[54:49] But since it is not trying to be funny, I can't, I can't discount it for failing at something it's not even attempting.

[54:54] Yeah.

[54:55] You know, so.

Dan McCoy

[54:55] It's easy, breezy, beautiful.

Stuart Wellington

[54:58] Well, there's a reason why, like, I put it on and don't remember that much of it.

[55:01] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[55:02] Because I'm like, yeah, it's just.

Stuart Wellington

[55:03] Yeah, the drugs.

[55:04] It feels a little bit like.

[55:05] It was the drugs I took.

Elliott Kalan

[55:06] But it feels a little bit like when you're watching commercials in a row during a commercial break on a TV, when you're watching TV.

[55:12] And the commercials are neither annoying enough to be memorable, nor are they funny or cool enough to be memorable.

[55:18] And you're just sitting there letting faces that you recognize play over your retinas.

[55:24] And you're just kind of like, all right, this happened.

[55:27] And if there's anything that pushes me towards not liking it, it's the soundtrack.

[55:30] Like, the needle drops are just dumb.

[55:33] Like, I'm not a fan of those needle drops.

[55:35] But overall.

[55:35] I mean, don't get me wrong.

Stuart Wellington

[55:36] You play a ZZ Top song, I'm going to like that.

Dan McCoy

[55:39] He's going to get up and start boogieing around the room.

[55:41] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[55:42] Yeah.

[55:42] Do a little Texas two-step around my living room.

[55:46] But I will say that objectively, this is a bad, bad movie.

[55:50] Yeah.

[55:55] Hi, is this Sam?

[55:57] Yeah.

[55:57] Yes, it is.

S5

[55:58] I'm Brenda, host of Secret Histories of Nerd Mysteries on Maximum Fun.

[56:02] And I'm calling because you've been named Maximum Fun's Member of the Month for May.

S6

[56:07] Wow.

[56:08] I'm really excited to hear that.

[56:09] I love being a member.

[56:10] I like all the boco.

[56:11] And I just, I enjoy all the shows that I listen to.

[56:14] I just, I love Maximum Fun.

S5

[56:16] As our member of the month, you'll be getting a $25 gift card to the Maximum Fun store, a special member of the month bumper sticker, a special priority parking spot at Maximum Fun HQ in Los Angeles, California, just for you.

S6

[56:30] I can't wait to see what the bumper sticker looks like.

S5

[56:32] Oh, yeah.

[56:33] I am obsessed with bumper stickers.

[56:35] What's your message to people thinking about joining Maximum Fun?

S6

[56:39] I mean, if you really like the shows, I think it's like a really good way to help support them.

[56:44] I'm really happy I'm able to.

S5

[56:46] Thank you so much for listening.

S6

[56:48] Thank you for making your show.

S4

[56:50] Become a Maximum Fun member now at MaximumFun.org slash join.

[56:54] It's hard to explain what Jordan Jesse Go is about.

[56:57] So I had my kids take a stab at it.

[57:00] Probably weird stuff.

[57:02] You talk about?

[57:04] Jobs that are annoying.

[57:06] Uh-huh.

[57:06] Hmm, business.

S5

[57:07] I think you probably learned your lesson after talking about business a couple of times.

S4

[57:12] Grown up jokes that I don't understand and there's no prison making.

[57:17] And all the podcasts are boring.

[57:24] Subscribe to Jordan Jesse Go, a comedy show for grownups.

Dan McCoy

[57:54] Use tools, professional, on-brand invoices and online payments help you get paid on time.

[58:00] And built-in appointment scheduling and email marketing tools let you streamline your workflow.

[58:06] And who doesn't want a streamlined workflow?

[58:10] What's more?

Elliott Kalan

[58:11] Squarespace.

[58:11] At my age, my workflow is not as streamlined as I would like it to be.

Dan McCoy

[58:14] You should probably get your prostate checked for that.

[58:16] My work prostate.

Elliott Kalan

[58:18] My prostate.

[58:19] Professional.

[58:20] Good stuff.

Dan McCoy

[58:20] What's more?

[58:22] Squarespace also offers a full library of award-winning website templates designed by pros with all sorts of options for whatever you might specifically need.

[58:33] Make your site with drag-and-drop editing and unrivaled visual design effects and styling options with no experience required.

[58:42] So, head to squarespace.com slash flop for a free trial.

[58:46] When you are ready to launch, use offer code FLOP to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain.

[58:55] Elliot, you probably have things you want to plug.

[58:57] You do things on the side.

Elliott Kalan

[58:58] I do too many things on the side.

[59:00] I've got stuff to plug.

[59:01] Just the same old regular stuff.

[59:03] Regular listeners know that I have a couple of ongoing projects.

[59:06] One is my other podcast.

[59:07] Sorry, guys.

[59:08] I'm cheating on you with Sean Hayes.

[59:09] That podcast is Clueless.

[59:10] It's okay.

Dan McCoy

[59:11] I like to watch from the window.

Elliott Kalan

[59:14] My podcast, Clueless, on the Smartless Network, which is a 12 to 15-minute long, usually, puzzle podcast.

[59:22] Please try to check that out.

[59:23] My series from DC Comics, Harley Quinn, continues to come out monthly, and I'm having a lot of fun writing it, and the art looks amazing.

[59:32] And finally, there's my new children's picture book, Sadie Mouse Wrecks the House.

[59:36] It's out in store shelves now, and we just had a signing yesterday, as we're recording this, at Once Upon a Time Books in Montrose, California, and it went really great.

[59:45] And a bunch of floppers showed up with their kids, and it was really wonderful.

[59:48] So, thank you so much to the listeners who showed up.

[59:50] Thanks for picking up Sadie Mouse Wrecks the House.

[59:52] I think your kids will enjoy it.

Stuart Wellington

[59:54] You didn't have a Salmon Rushdie situation?

Elliott Kalan

[59:57] I did not have a Salmon Rushdie situation.

[59:59] No, I didn't.

[59:59] Yeah.

[59:59] Everything was fine.

[1:00:01] No one tried to assassinate me.

[1:00:02] So, that was a hilarious joke, Stuart.

[1:00:04] Dan, can we talk to Stu about this?

[1:00:06] Like, this is going too far.

[1:00:08] But anyway, thanks, floppers, for coming out.

[1:00:10] That's Sadie Mouse Wrecks the House on bookstore shelves.

[1:00:13] Go to your local independent bookstore and say, get me a book where a mouse named Sadie Wrecks the House.

[1:00:19] Nice.

[1:00:19] Stuart, what about you?

[1:00:20] What do you got to plug?

Stuart Wellington

[1:00:21] I don't know.

[1:00:22] We reopened our bar Commonwealth in Park Slope.

[1:00:24] You should go check it out.

[1:00:26] You should go to my Twitch channel, Stuart Wellington, and watch me paint models once a week.

[1:00:31] I usually do it in the afternoons on Fridays.

[1:00:34] Yeah, that's about it.

[1:00:35] I got nothing else going on.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:37] Hey, as long as we're plugging things.

[1:00:38] You know, I don't actually mention it that much, but I've got a personal newsletter.

[1:00:41] It's called Dan McCoy's Special Interests.

[1:00:43] You can, I don't know, you can just Google that.

[1:00:46] It'll come up.

[1:00:47] Dan McCoy's Special Interests.

[1:00:50] It's probably also the URL.

[1:00:52] I can't remember.

[1:00:53] What am I supposed to know everything?

Elliott Kalan

[1:00:55] Yeah, and you certainly have no way of looking it up now.

[1:00:57] So what do we do next on the podcast?

[1:00:59] No way.

Dan McCoy

[1:00:59] The next thing is, let's answer some listener letters.

[1:01:06] Letters from listeners.

[1:01:07] I'm pulling you up right now, and here we go.

[1:01:12] Hi, Floppers.

[1:01:13] Hey.

[1:01:14] This is from Joanne, a last name with a little.

[1:01:16] Hi, Floppers.

[1:01:17] Fabrics?

[1:01:18] Mm-hmm.

[1:01:19] Well, that's Joanne, but yes, sure.

Stuart Wellington

[1:01:22] Thanks.

[1:01:22] Thanks for correcting me.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:25] I didn't want those Joanne Fabrics people who are like already sad about the, you know,

[1:01:29] going out of business.

[1:01:30] Hey, I can't win today.

[1:01:31] To come for us, you know?

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:33] Yes, you're just hitting so many hot button topics and raw nerves.

[1:01:37] Yeah, I'm so sorry, guys.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:39] Joanne says,

[1:01:40] I was ecstatic when Hallie recommended Dangerous Beauty on the Better Man episode,

[1:01:45] as it finally gave me a reason to write in after listening for 15 plus years.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:50] Wow, thank you for listening all that time and not writing in.

[1:01:52] We appreciate your restraint.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:54] Just kidding.

Elliott Kalan

[1:01:55] Hey, just kidding.

Dan McCoy

[1:01:56] I attended a fancy all-girls high school that required everyone to take one.

Elliott Kalan

[1:02:01] Stuart, you were just telling me about a movie about something like that.

[1:02:03] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:02:05] I required everyone to take one semester of Italian Renaissance art.

[1:02:10] At the end of the semester, our teacher decided to screen Dangerous Beauty.

[1:02:15] The main character's mother, played by Jacqueline Bissette,

[1:02:18] is a former courtesan who decides that her daughter must also become a courtesan.

[1:02:23] Yeah, my business.

[1:02:24] There's a sequence where the mother trains the daughter in the ways of the courtesan.

[1:02:28] It is all pretty tame until she brings in a handsome stable boy and forces her daughter to watch her give him a handjob.

[1:02:37] Imagine about...

Stuart Wellington

[1:02:38] We've all been there.

[1:02:39] Imagine...

[1:02:40] Which part of that scenario?

Dan McCoy

[1:02:42] On which side.

[1:02:43] Imagine about 20, 15-year-old girls screaming in absolute horror when they realize that this poor girl has to learn how to give a handjob from her mom.

[1:02:52] I've seen and forgotten a lot of movies over the years, but that scene will live in my mind until the day I die.

[1:02:59] Anyway, do you have any particularly memorable classroom-based movie-watching incidents to share,

[1:03:05] whether from elementary school, high school, or college?

[1:03:09] Best wishes, Joanna.

[1:03:12] The only two things I can remember, not as striking as that, I remember, of course, we watched Chandler's List in school,

[1:03:20] and people had to get permission slips for watching an R-rated movie.

[1:03:25] To watch something with Jews on it, yeah.

[1:03:26] Yeah.

[1:03:27] Well, that, like, it just struck me because, like, I understand why the school has to do it,

[1:03:32] but on the other hand, it was like, oh, the people who grow up in the most restrictive households

[1:03:38] who arguably would benefit the most from seeing this movie are not going to see it under that circumstance.

[1:03:45] But I also remember in middle school, you know, watching, I think it was, like, the last week of school

[1:03:53] when the teachers have given up and nothing we're going to watch is of educational value.

Elliott Kalan

[1:03:58] Yeah, we once watched Empire Records in a biology class in high school at the end of the year.

Dan McCoy

[1:04:03] We watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and I was the only one who laughed at the, like,

[1:04:08] is the, you know, that's the Ark of the Covenant?

[1:04:10] Are you sure?

[1:04:11] Pretty sure.

[1:04:12] And, like, the teacher, like, coming by, like, eh.

[1:04:15] Oh, this guy's getting a passing grade.

[1:04:17] You and me, we're the real ones.

[1:04:18] We like Indy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:04:21] I had kind of the opposite type experience in a classroom once, which is my AP government

[1:04:26] politics teacher was out sick one day in high school, and so he had, he was supposed to watch

[1:04:30] Roger and Me, the first Michael Moore movie.

[1:04:33] And our substitute put it on, and then about five minutes in, he turned it off and said,

[1:04:38] this is un-American.

[1:04:38] And he said, just read, just read or do your other homework for the rest of the class.

[1:04:41] Wow.

[1:04:43] That's incredible.

[1:04:44] It was so funny.

Stuart Wellington

[1:04:46] I remember, I definitely, I think it was in high school, we were doing, like, stream of

[1:04:52] consciousness stuff.

[1:04:52] I think we were reading Portrait of the Artist or something.

[1:04:54] And so, as an example, we watched The Wall, and we had to get our parents to sign permission slips.

[1:05:02] Sober?

[1:05:03] Yeah.

[1:05:03] And, like, one of the kids, like, complained to their parents, and so there was, like,

[1:05:07] a little bit of a stink because their parents were like, this is inappropriate for kids

[1:05:10] to watch.

[1:05:12] It was really funny.

[1:05:13] And then, and then the next year we watched-

[1:05:15] Too boring for children.

[1:05:16] We watched 1776.

[1:05:18] And I was like, man, why is that Boy Meets World guy singing all these fucking songs?

[1:05:21] Why is Mr. Feeney doing all this singing?

Dan McCoy

[1:05:26] Amazing stories all around.

[1:05:28] Just like that series.

[1:05:29] Yeah, that's what the series Amazing Stories was mostly.

[1:05:32] I'll get this guy present.

Stuart Wellington

[1:05:33] Do you think when they were trying to come up, when they were trying to come up with a fucking

[1:05:36] title for that thing, they're like, what do we call this show with all these amazing

[1:05:40] stories?

[1:05:41] Oh!

[1:05:42] Wait, say that again.

Elliott Kalan

[1:05:44] What?

[1:05:44] The show's full of amazing stories?

[1:05:46] That's it.

Dan McCoy

[1:05:47] But I didn't know for sure until I heard it a second time.

[1:05:50] The show is full of amazing stories.

[1:05:53] Can we shorten this?

[1:05:56] This is from Pete Lastname Withheld, who writes, a while ago I asked you what I could do to

[1:06:01] be less like Dan, or what Dan would recommend that I might enjoy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:05] Why would you want to be less like Dan?

[1:06:06] Let's just start.

[1:06:07] Dan's a wonderful person.

[1:06:08] He's a real sweetheart.

[1:06:08] Dan Rule.

[1:06:09] Thank you.

[1:06:09] I think our president would be a lot better if he was more like Dan.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:12] Yeah, I agree with that.

[1:06:14] This was just a minor update to my Dan-itis.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:17] How many Tinto Brass movies has our president seen?

[1:06:19] Probably a few, actually.

[1:06:20] Yeah, he's probably into it.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:21] Probably a few.

[1:06:22] This is just a minor update to my Dan-itis situation.

[1:06:25] I've blown out my knee and torn my ACL.

[1:06:28] Oh, wow.

[1:06:28] That's horrible.

[1:06:29] Just sorry to Pete Lastname Withheld.

[1:06:31] Yeah.

[1:06:32] Sorry to hear that, Pete.

[1:06:33] You know, but here's some encouragement.

[1:06:36] I'd say that my knee is back to being at 95%, but the other knee deteriorated to make up

[1:06:44] for it.

[1:06:45] Oh, that's terrible.

[1:06:46] And just think about it.

Elliott Kalan

[1:06:47] Dan's ACL healed, but he got years of complaints out of it.

[1:06:50] Years.

[1:06:51] So that was worth it, right?

[1:06:52] Yeah, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:06:52] Think of all the free drinks he got from sad people who decided, wanted to make him feel

[1:06:56] better.

Dan McCoy

[1:06:57] Just keep up with your physical therapy.

[1:06:58] That's the advice.

[1:07:00] But now let's move on to recommendations.

[1:07:04] Because you're like a bit of a teacher pleaser, right, Dan?

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:07] A teacher pleaser?

[1:07:08] Well, like, yeah, you're trying to like, when your doctor gives you physical therapy, you're

[1:07:12] like, I got to do that.

[1:07:13] The teacher wants me to get this done.

[1:07:16] Is that true or no?

[1:07:17] Or is it entirely because you're motivated to improve yourself?

Dan McCoy

[1:07:22] I wouldn't say it's because I'm motivated to improve myself.

[1:07:24] I am motivated to, you know, like, my body is important as a way of walking around.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:31] And there's like a certain amount of knee vanity tied in with that.

[1:07:34] Yeah, exactly.

[1:07:35] I want to have the sexiest knees.

Elliott Kalan

[1:07:36] Well, that's the thing.

[1:07:37] He sees those Slendermans and he's like, I got to have knees like that where you don't

[1:07:40] even see them.

[1:07:41] It's just a straight line up.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:42] It's impossible to have knees like Slenderman.

[1:07:44] You got to stop trying to reach an unachievable goal.

Dan McCoy

[1:07:47] But he's so tall, too.

[1:07:49] Like, he must have knee problems, like, support all that.

[1:07:52] Oh, for sure.

[1:07:53] Foot problems, ankle problems.

Stuart Wellington

[1:07:54] You guys think Slenderman can hoop?

[1:07:59] Could hoop?

[1:07:59] I'm not sure, but it's funny to think of it.

[1:08:02] Slenderman can hoopin'?

[1:08:03] Yeah.

[1:08:04] Yeah.

Dan McCoy

[1:08:05] Let's do recommendations of movies that we've seen recently or not so recently that we've

[1:08:10] enjoyed.

[1:08:12] Yeah, don't limit me.

[1:08:13] Yeah, I would never.

[1:08:14] I would never, Elliot.

[1:08:16] By the time this is out, well, I mean, people are already seeing it in the theaters.

[1:08:22] I don't know.

[1:08:22] But I got to see it in advance screening because I had a critic friend.

[1:08:26] Ooh, Dan's flexing, everybody.

[1:08:28] Who invited me to an early screening of Final Destination Bloodlines, which I very much enjoyed.

[1:08:36] I have enjoyed basically the entire Final Destination series.

[1:08:40] Give me a quick ranking.

[1:08:41] Even the weakest one.

[1:08:43] I've enjoyed a little bit.

[1:08:44] Which is the weakest one?

[1:08:45] Four.

[1:08:46] Four is the weakest, yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:08:50] Well, of the-

[1:08:50] That's the one where they're tracking down death and they're trying to kill death with

[1:08:53] different death traps and he keeps escaping.

[1:08:56] I don't know.

[1:08:57] Of the previous ones-

[1:08:58] Which one is the one where the soldier plays-

[1:09:00] He plays cards and he gets the thing that lets him see death and he catches him in a bag

[1:09:05] and hands him in a tree?

Dan McCoy

[1:09:06] You're thinking of that episode of the Storyteller.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:08] Oh, you're right.

[1:09:09] That's one thing of Jim Henson's Storyteller, not Final Destination.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:13] Of the previous ones, I think personally I would go three, two, five, one, four.

[1:09:21] Okay.

[1:09:22] But a lot of them are grouped pretty closely.

[1:09:27] But this new one, really enjoyed it.

[1:09:30] Probably the best one, I would say.

[1:09:33] Oh.

[1:09:34] The one weak point about it is it doesn't have like-

[1:09:37] You know, she's not bad, but like I don't think the lead has the charisma of like Mary

[1:09:43] Elizabeth Winstead or even like Allie Larder is also like-

[1:09:46] Let alone a Diane Keaton.

[1:09:48] Let alone a Diane Keaton.

[1:09:49] Her in a Final Destination.

[1:09:50] Cast her in a Final Destination.

Elliott Kalan

[1:09:52] I would love her kind of like bumbling through a Final Destination would be amazing.

Dan McCoy

[1:09:57] But she's got to survive.

[1:09:58] She's got to somehow like be the only one who like is able to survive through like dithering.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:05] That's basically like a Mr. Magoo baby stay out situation.

[1:10:09] Yes, exactly.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:10] I don't think that like I don't think the new one ever gets better than its opening sequence,

[1:10:14] which is amazing.

[1:10:16] But I do think it has a lot of fun.

[1:10:18] By this point in the series, like you know what to expect out of these movies.

[1:10:22] And the movie knows that you know what to expect.

[1:10:25] Yeah.

[1:10:25] And plays some fun games with you and your expectations.

[1:10:29] And I saw it in sort of fake IMAX and the whole audience was hooting and hollering.

[1:10:35] So-

[1:10:36] Are they showing that in 40X?

[1:10:38] I'm sure they have to.

[1:10:39] They have to.

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:40] Yeah, and they kill you at the end of the movie.

[1:10:42] Whoa!

[1:10:42] They do.

[1:10:42] That's part of the experience.

Dan McCoy

[1:10:44] That's part of it.

[1:10:44] Stuart, what do you got?

Stuart Wellington

[1:10:46] I am going to recommend a movie that's kind of on theme with summer camp.

[1:10:50] I re-watched the movie Bull Durham, a sexy baseball comedy.

[1:10:55] They don't make a lot of sexy baseball comedies anymore.

[1:10:58] Just the one.

[1:10:59] Yeah, you-

Dan McCoy

[1:11:00] Everybody wants them.

[1:11:01] That's kind of sexy.

[1:11:02] Yeah, I guess you're right.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:03] Yeah, but there's not a lot of baseball in it.

[1:11:05] No.

[1:11:05] Yeah.

[1:11:05] It's not really about the baseball.

[1:11:07] In some way.

[1:11:08] Well, I mean, I guess Bull Durham is about the baseball.

[1:11:10] I remember watching it as a kid and being like, why isn't there more baseball in this movie?

[1:11:14] And then as an adult, I'm like, why isn't there more sex in this movie?

[1:11:17] But it's so fun.

[1:11:20] It's a great movie.

[1:11:21] As somebody who doesn't really care that much about baseball, I feel like the movie does a very good job of translating what baseball means to people to a person like me,

[1:11:30] or at least communicating what baseball is for somebody who is not interested.

[1:11:34] It also, it helps that the leads are all incredibly charming.

[1:11:38] I had kind of forgotten what a sex symbol Kevin Costner was, and he's just like, man, he's just lighting that screen on fire, baby.

[1:11:44] I'm so used to him being like, you know, like all-purpose American Dad, not the American Dad from the TV show.

Dan McCoy

[1:11:51] So not all-purpose American Dad.

[1:11:52] No, he's not.

[1:11:52] Because that one purpose, there's another guy.

Stuart Wellington

[1:11:54] Yeah, he's not Steve Smith.

[1:11:56] I don't know.

[1:11:57] Is that his name?

[1:11:57] Stan Smith?

[1:11:58] I don't know.

[1:11:59] I think it's Stan.

[1:11:59] You work in animation.

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:00] Yeah, I work in animation, which means I know the names of all the characters on the shows I don't like.

[1:12:05] You know American Dad.

[1:12:05] Yeah.

[1:12:07] But it's-

[1:12:08] Yeah, I see American Dad sometimes at events in the industry, yeah.

[1:12:11] Well, like Kevin Costner and Susan Sarandon.

[1:12:13] We nod.

[1:12:13] We don't really know each other, but we recognize it from other events.

[1:12:15] We just nod.

Stuart Wellington

[1:12:15] Yeah, of course.

[1:12:16] And you're like, you guys have probably mentioned like, hey, we should work together, but you never really follow up.

[1:12:20] You don't actually intend to work together.

[1:12:21] No, we don't actually have that conversation, no.

[1:12:23] No.

[1:12:23] Okay.

[1:12:25] Maybe this is all just in my, the fantasies that I write or the texts I write to Dan.

[1:12:30] Sure, yeah.

[1:12:31] So what I'm saying is, is that Kevin Costner, Susan Sarandon, very hot, Tim Robbins, fun, great movie.

[1:12:38] Check it out.

[1:12:40] When are you going to watch Bull Durham with your baseball fanatic son, Ali?

Elliott Kalan

[1:12:44] I feel like it's not really, again, the type of baseball movie that works best for an 11-year-old.

[1:12:50] That being said, we have our go-to baseball movie in our house.

[1:12:52] League of Their Own.

[1:12:53] No, League of Their Own, the greatest sports movie ever made.

[1:12:56] And so we watch that quite a bit in our house.

Dan McCoy

[1:12:58] But your son loves that Susan Sontag speech, right, in Bull Durham?

[1:13:02] Yeah, yeah, that's true.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:03] He really relates to that.

[1:13:03] I mean, it's a great speech, Dan.

[1:13:05] It is a great speech.

[1:13:06] But the thing is, he has a lot of issues with Sontag's later work.

[1:13:09] So that kind of muddies the water a little bit.

[1:13:11] Yeah.

[1:13:12] Dan, what movie are you going to recommend?

Dan McCoy

[1:13:14] I already did it.

[1:13:15] Oh, yeah, that's right.

Elliott Kalan

[1:13:16] It's my turn.

[1:13:17] So I'm going to recommend a movie that is kind of the exact opposite of Summer Camp, I think, in every way.

[1:13:23] But it still says something true.

[1:13:24] It's just kind of bitterly true.

[1:13:26] This is a movie I may have recommended in the past on the show.

[1:13:29] It's a favorite of mine.

[1:13:30] But recently, I just wanted to watch something that I knew I would get something out of, even if it wasn't always sweetness and light.

[1:13:37] And so that movie is Little Murders, starring Elliot Gould and Marcia Rod from 1971 that Alan Arkin directed, written by Jules Pfeiffer from his play of the same name.

[1:13:47] And for anyone who's not familiar, it is one of the kind of darkest comedies that is still funny to me that I feel came out of, like, America in the 60s, 70s.

[1:13:58] It's not quite as grim to me as Where's Papa, a movie I do not find funny, but it's still really grim.

[1:14:05] Do they ever answer the question?

[1:14:07] They do not answer the question of where Papa is, no.

[1:14:09] But speaking of the movie that I'm talking about now, Little Murders, it's kind of like a nightmare vision of New York as hell in some ways, but not the kind of, like, brightly lit, kind of, like, Martin Scorsese taxi driver in New York as hell.

[1:14:22] And more like a city that just grinds people down with real casual kind of disrespect and violence and filth.

[1:14:30] And the acting in it is great.

[1:14:33] It's a real over-the-top caricatured view of the world.

[1:14:36] There's some amazing monologues in it.

[1:14:38] There's a monologue that Elliot Gould has about his experience as a younger man with a government worker who was spying on him by reading his mail.

[1:14:47] That is all this one-take monologue speech that really hit me really hard.

[1:14:51] Like, I went back and rewound it and watched it again.

[1:14:54] And it's just a really great movie that I find it really funny.

[1:14:58] It'll make you feel really bad.

[1:15:00] But the performances are great.

[1:15:02] And it's just, you know, if you want a movie that's going to challenge you to a certain extent, Little Murders is a really good one for that.

Dan McCoy

[1:15:07] I saw that movie when I was, like, 12 or 13 because—

[1:15:10] Not the right time to see it.

[1:15:11] Even as a kid, for some reason, I loved Elliot Gould.

[1:15:14] Yeah.

[1:15:15] I'm like, oh, that'll be a little comedy.

[1:15:17] I watched this, and man, did it horrify me.

[1:15:21] It's a haunting movie, yeah.

Stuart Wellington

[1:15:22] I love when you watch a movie with, like, a monologue like that, and you're like, I gotta rewind it.

[1:15:29] I think the last time I did that was, what was that, Resurrection with Rebecca Hall?

[1:15:32] Oh, that's good.

[1:15:32] Where you're like, what is happening here in this movie?

[1:15:35] Yeah.

Elliott Kalan

[1:15:36] So this is one.

[1:15:37] I highly recommend it.

[1:15:38] It's not gonna be for everybody.

[1:15:39] But I think it's really amazing.

[1:15:42] So that's Little Murders.

[1:15:44] I will say one thing.

[1:15:45] Try to avoid reading any summaries of it because there's a thing that happens in it that should be a surprise.

[1:15:51] And I remember once our good friend, Matt Carman, who helps us with our Flop TV stuff, I recommended it to him, and he got it from Netflix when Netflix still mailed out DVDs.

[1:16:00] And the summary on the envelope gave away what happened as if it was something that happens in the beginning of the movie and made him really mad.

[1:16:06] So don't bother looking up summaries of it.

[1:16:09] Just go.

[1:16:09] Yeah.

[1:16:09] I don't know why you're reading summaries of the movie you're about to watch anyway, but go see it in the theater where it's playing in 1971.

[1:16:17] Yeah.

[1:16:17] I guess.

Dan McCoy

[1:16:19] Well, that's it for this episode.

[1:16:22] I want to thank our producer, Alex Smith.

[1:16:25] He goes by the name Howell Dottie on the internet for all sorts of musical and Twitch streaming enterprises.

[1:16:32] That's a name that isn't naturally understood how it's spelled.

[1:16:38] So I'm going to spell it out for you because I feel like we don't do it that often.

[1:16:41] It's H-O-W-E-L-L.

[1:16:45] That's Howell.

[1:16:46] Dottie.

[1:16:47] D-A-W-D-Y.

[1:16:50] And I also want to thank our network, Maximum Fun.

[1:16:55] If you go to MaximumFun.org, you can find a lot of great other podcasts.

[1:17:00] They say comedy and culture.

[1:17:02] One of those things applies to you.

[1:17:03] You like comedy?

[1:17:04] You like culture?

[1:17:05] Which one?

[1:17:06] Maybe both.

[1:17:08] Is it possible?

[1:17:08] Who knows?

[1:17:09] Someone say comedy is part of culture.

[1:17:11] You never know.

[1:17:12] Someone say culture is part of comedy.

[1:17:13] How long is the podcast we're doing here?

[1:17:17] I just want to stretch it at the end.

[1:17:20] Oh, okay.

[1:17:21] Well, anyway, for The Flophouse, I've been Dan McCoy.

Elliott Kalan

[1:17:24] I'm Stuart Wellington.

Dan McCoy

[1:17:25] I'm Elliot Kalin.

[1:17:27] Okay.

Stuart Wellington

[1:17:28] See you later.

[1:17:29] Bye.

[1:17:30] Suckers.

[1:17:33] Bye.

[1:17:39] Do you like beet juice?

[1:17:44] I actually do like beet juice.

[1:17:46] You can't beat it.

[1:17:47] Good for the heart.

[1:17:48] And from what I hear, a natural Viagra.

[1:17:53] So if you've got a little bit of penis problems, Dan, you can try to pick it.

Dan McCoy

[1:17:58] How's it working for your penis?

[1:17:59] You're drinking it right now.

[1:18:01] I mean, I'm like at least at half mad.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:04] So Dan, if you're ever having troubles downstairs, just open it up like a sandworm, shove a beet in there.

Dan McCoy

[1:18:14] Man, I was so close to coffee going straight into my sinuses with that one.

Elliott Kalan

[1:18:20] That would have burned your sinuses.

Dan McCoy

[1:18:21] Yeah, I would not have enjoyed that.

[1:18:23] No, not at all.

[1:18:24] Should we do this recording or should we keep saying gross things that no one wants to hear?

Stuart Wellington

[1:18:28] What about this grandma camp movie?

[1:18:33] Maximum Fun.

Dan McCoy

[1:18:34] A worker-owned network.

[1:18:35] Of artist-owned shows.

[1:18:37] Supported.

[1:18:38] Directly.

[1:18:39] By you.

Ep.#452 - Summer Camp

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